BL  220  .D5  1864 
Dix,  Morgan,  1827-1908. 
Lectures  on  the  pantheistic 
idea  of  an 


LECTURES 


PANTHEISTIC  IDEA 


AN  IMPERSONAL  -  SUBSTANCE  -  DEITY, 

AS   CONTRASTED   WITH 

THE   CHRISTIAN  FAITH  CONCERNING 
ALMIGHTY   GOD. 


REV.   MORGAN 'dIX,   S.  T.  D. 

RECTOR  OP  TRINITY  CHURCH,   NEW  YORK. 


NEW  YORK; 
PUBLISHED  BY  HURD  AND   HOUGHTON, 

BOSTON;   E.  P.  BUTTON   AND   OO'iIPANY. 

1864. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1864,  by 

HuRD  AND  Houghton, 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  for  the  Southern  District  of  New  York. 


RIVERSIBE,    CAMBRIDGE  : 

STEREOTYPED     AND     PRINTED     BT 

H.   0.   HOUGHTON  AND  COMPANT. 


ADVERTISEMENT. 


The  following  Lectures  were  prepared  in  the  early 
part  of  last  year,  and  were  delivered  at  St.  Paul's 
Chapel  during  the  Lenten  season  of  1863.  They 
were  preached,  for  the  second  time,  in  Trinity 
Chapel,  during  the  past  winter,  at  the  request  of  a 
large  number  of  the  members  of  our  parish.  After 
that,  the  Vestry  of  Trinity  Church  expressed,  by  a 
resolution  to  that  effect,  the  wish  that  they  should 
be  published.  This  desire  could  not  be  acceded  to 
without  embarrassment ;  for  the  lectures  were  writ- 
ten without  reference  to  publication,  and  the  author, 
while  aware  of  the  character  and  extent  of  their  im- 
perfections, knew  also  that  he  had  no  time  to  make 
them  what  he  would  have  them,  and  that  they  must 
<ro  forth  as  they  were,  or  not  at  all.  But  the  hope 
^hat  they  might  do  good  outweighed  the  fear  of 
criticism,  while  the  author  felt  that  the  known  dif- 
ficulties of  his  position  would  establish  his  claim  to 
favorable  indulgence.  It  is  our  misfortune,  in  this 
country,  that  we  have  no  body  of  clergy  sequestered 
for  careful  and  holy  studies  in  defence  of  the  faith  ] 


iv  ADVERTISEMENT. 

no  cloistered  band  whose  only  work  it  should  be  to 
read  and  write  and  pray,  and  thereby  sustain  the 
active  laborers  in  the  open  field.  Till  this  defect  be 
mended,  the  out-door  workers  must  be  also  the 
writers,  notwithstanding  all  the  disadvantages  of 
their  situation.  But  while  it  is  so,  they  should  be 
treated  with  allowance,  and  judged  not  so  much  in 
respect  to  the  manner  in  which  they  accomplish 
their  tasks,  as  with  reference  to  the  object  and  end 
proposed.  The  priests  of  the  Church,  in  the  full  ex- 
ercise of  their  functions,  can  hardly  be  expected  to 
have  time  to  write  at  all ;  much  less  can  it  be 
thought  that  they  should  be  able  to  write  with  care- 
ful and  polished  style,  and  with  the  finish  and  re- 
finement which  come  of  leisure  for  practice  and  dis- 
cipline. But  reputation  is  the  last  object  which  we 
may  propose  to  ourselves  who  have  upon  us,  day 
by  day,  the  care  of  the  souls  of  sinners  :  only  to  the 
good  of  those  souls  may  we  look,  and  to  the  glory 
of  Almighty  God.  Enough  if  the  former  of  these 
ends  be  secured,  and  the  latter  in  any  degree  pro- 
moted ;  the  writer  will  cheerfully  bear  the  reproach 
of  those  who  may  read,  not  to  grow  better  and 
wiser,  but  to  find  occasions  against  the  theme  in 
the  shortcomings  of  him  who  handles  it.  What  has 
been  written  and  preached,  and  is  now  given  to  the 
public,  was  so  prepared  and  spoken  solely  with  the 
view  of  stating  the  truth  concerning  the  Almighty. 
May  He  accept  the  work  done  unto  His  honor ;  and 


AD  VER  TISEMENT.  V 

may  He  forgive  the  weakness  of  His  servant,  and 
bring,  as  He  ever  does,  spiritual  strength  out  of 
mortal  infirmity.  Unto  Him  be  glory  everlastingly. 
Amen. 

Tki>^ity  Eectoky,  New  York,  May  23, 1864. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

INTRODUCTION ix 

LECTURE  I. 
THE    CHURCH    AND    PHILOSOPHY ...  1 

LECTURE  n. 
PANTHEISM    IN    ITS    THEORETIC    FORM 15 

LECTURE  III. 
PANTHEISM    IN   ITS    APPLICATIONS 32 

LECTURE  IV. 

OBJECTIONS    TO    THE   PANTHEISTIC    THEORY 49 

LECTURE  V. 
THE    CHRISTIAN    IDEA    OF    ALMIGHTY    GOD 65 

LECTURE   VL 
THE    CHRISTIAN   FAITH   IN    ITS    APPLICATIONS        ....      80 

NOTES 97 


INTRODUCTION. 


Although  it  is  considered  that  the  design  of 
the  following  Lectures  could  hardly  be  misunder- 
stood by  one  who  should  read  them  without  preju- 
dice, yet  it  seems  proper  to  meet  one  objection 
which  may  be  thought  by  some  to  lie  against  them. 
The  writer  would,  therefore,  in  advance  disclaim 
the  intention  of  fixing  upon  every  one  whose  the- 
ories on  history,  on  ethics,  and  on  the  course  and 
movement  of  terrestrial  things,  are  in  the  following 
pages  more  particularly  referred  to,  the  stigma  and 
reproach  of  consciously  holding  the  philosophical 
system  with  which  those  theories  are  undoubtedly 
allied.  For  it  is  a  well-known  feature  of  the  pan- 
theistic heresy,  and  characteristic  of  that  profound 
spiritual  disease,  that  the  very  individuals  whose 
views  most  nearly  harmonize  with  it  may  yet  be 
strenuous  in  disclaiming  the  relationship,  although 
it  be  evident  that  their  position  is  a  complete  incon- 
sequence, except  as  interpreted  on  the  hypothesis 
of  such  a  tie.  We  are  willing,  then,  to  admit  and 
to  give  prominence  to  the  fact  of  their  protests  and 
denials,  thinking  it  sufficient  to  prove  the  identity 


X  INTRODUCTION. 

of  the  results  reached  in  either  case.  If  the  popu- 
lar and  plausible  rationalism  of  the  day  is  found  to 
involve  the  same  consequences  which  follow  from 
the  principles  of  simple  Pantheism,  that  should  be 
enouo-h  to  secure  for  it  the  mistrust  and  aversion 
of  thoughtful  men  ;  the  question  of  the  degree  of 
consanguinity  may  be  held  as  not  essential. 

The  object  proposed  in  these  lectures  is  as  fol- 
lows :  —  To  show,  after  stating  scientifically  the 
vast  and  disastrous  heresy  of  the  ages,  that  mod- 
ern lines  of  thought,  professed  modern  discoveries, 
and  modern  theories  of  human  progress,  of  history, 
of  ethics,  and  of  religion,  are  but  new  developments 
of  the  spirit  which  invented  that  fatal  system  ;  that 
they  run  in  parallel  lines  with  it ;  that  they  lead  to 
the  same  conclusions.  The  author  entertains  no 
doubt  of  the  fact  of  this  correspondence.  It  is  not 
necessary  to  prove  identity  of  origin  :  it  is  enough 
to  show  that  the  principle  which  underlies  the 
whole  system  of  modern  speculation  involves  the 
results  which  were  reached  by  the  ancient  philoso- 
phies, and  that  the  movement  is  toward  the  very 
same  position  of  a  final  and  universal  skepticism. 
After  that,  it  matters  little  whether  the  writers  of 
our  day  consent  or  decline  to  be  classed  as  follow- 
ers of  the  old  pagan  masters.  They  labor  toward 
the  same  ends,  and  are  walking  in  the  same  direc- 
tion. 

The  grand  idea  of  the  age  in  which  we  live  is 


INTRODUCTION.  xi 

progress.  That  word  is  rung  in  our  ears  inces- 
santly, from  pulpit  and  platform,  with  the  pertina- 
cious tintinnabulation  of  a  jangling  chime.  It  is 
a  progress  without  God,  and  apart  from  the  insti- 
tutions of  Christianity;  a  progress  aside  from  rev- 
elation and  in  independence  of  spiritual  authority ; 
the  progress  of  humanity,  confident  in  itself  and  in 
its  own  powers.  The  Church  also  announces  a 
progress  to  mankind;  but  not  a  progress  such  as 
that  of  which  the  world  is  dreaming,  and  in  the 
fancied  accomplishment  of  which  society  seems 
fairly  drunk.  A  progress  is  implied  in  the  very 
idea  of  redemption  ;  the  prophets,  the  evangelists, 
the  apostles,  have  spoken  and  written  thereof,  in 
language  of  unmatched  sublimity ;  and  God  Him- 
self, incarnate,  has  illustrated  its  nature  and  ini- 
tiated it  in  His  own  person.  Let  us  not  forget 
that  progress  is  the  symbol  of  Christianity ;  but 
let  us  also  remember  of  what  sort  that  progress 
is :  that  Christ,  becoming  man,  did  grow  in  wis- 
dom and  in  stature,  and  in  the  showing  forth  of 
love  and  sacrifice,  until,  having  been  made  per- 
fect therein.  He  was  lifted  up,  and  glorified,  and 
set  on  the  right  hand  of  the  Majesty  on  high ;  and 
that,  in  Christ,  man  is  also  to  be  in  like  manner 
elevated  and  exalted,  yet  only  through  grace  and 
by  the  favor  of  God,  —  not  for  his  own  merits, 
nor  in  his  own  strength;  and  that  he  is  also  to 
grow  to  the  measure  of  the  stature  of  the  fulness 


xii  INTRODUCTION. 

of  Christ,  and  to  find  at  length  his  home  in 
heaven,  and  his  sphere  of  action  in  eternity.  This 
idea  of  progress,  —  through  grace  by  faith,  and  in 
the  path  of  sacrifice  and  love,  —  is  the  grand 
idea  of  Christianity.  But  it  is  not  that  progress 
which  is  spoken  of  in  the  world  and  in  the  phil- 
osophic and  rationalistic  schools.  Their's  is  a  god- 
less progress,  a  merely  human  progress,  an  illu- 
sion and  a  dream ;  the  speech  is  as  sounding  brass 
and  a  tinkling  cymbal,  and  the  end  is  disappoint- 
ment and  disgrace.  It  is  so,  because  men  do  not 
include  in  their  idea  of  progress  the  truth  con- 
cerning the  personal  and  living  God,  revealed  to 
us  in  the  gospel  and  through  the  Church  of  Jesus 
Christ.  When  that  fiiith  is  lost  to  man,  his  prog- 
ress is  that  of  one  who  rushes  headlong  in  the 
dark,  and  sees  not  the  gulf  toward  which  he  is 
hastening. 

The  rationalistic  schemes  in  vogue  in  our  own 
day  would  seem  to  rest,  as  upon  a  basis,  on  three 
principles,  two  of  which  are  positive  and  the  third 
negative.  The  two  positive  principles  are,  the 
unity  and  identity  of  substance,  and  the  mutable 
and  variable  character  of  truth.  The  negative 
principle  is,  the  denial  of  the  existence  of  any  rev- 
elation aside  from  that  which  is  supposed  to  be 
made  to  each  individual  through  his  own  mind  and 
spirit.  The  presence  of  these  principles  may  clearly 
be  detected,  not  merely  in  the  writings  of  the  phi- 


INTRODUCTION.  xiii 

losophizers  of  the  day,  but  also  in  the  tendencies 
of  our  popular  religionists,  who  have  practically 
annulled  the  authority  of  the  Word  of  God,  by  ad- 
mitting in  its  extremest  rigor  the  fatal  right  of 
private  judgment  as  to  the  meaning  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, and  who  have  no  more  idea  of  a  divinely 
established  church  than  a  barbarian  has  of  a  consti- 
tutional government.  It  is  against  that  threefold 
basis  of  rationalism  that  we  are  now  called  to  put 
forth  all  the  strength  we  possess  ;  and  there  is  no 
work  of  more  sacred  obligation  for  us,  at  this  hour, 
than  to  declare  the  opposite  principles  of  the  infi- 
nite and  radical  distinction  between  God  and  the 
miiverse;  of  the  immutable  and  unvarying  nature 
of  truth,  as  contradistinguished  from  human  opin- 
ions ;  and  of  the  binding  force  and  sole  sufficiency 
of  the  revelation  once  for  all  made  to  the  world  by 
Jesus  Christ,  and  perpetuated  in  the  visible  Church. 
Other  themes  possess  but  slight  importance  as  com- 
pared with  these ;  about  them  He  the  issues  of  life 
death. 

With  one  remark,  in  addition,  these  introductory 
observations  shall  be  terminated.  Much  has  been 
said  in  the  following  Lectures  concerning  the  origin 
of  the  world,  the  course  of  human  events,  and  the 
progress  of  our  race.  The  views  entertained  upon 
the  latter  two  of  these  subjects  will  vary  according 
to  the  idea  held  respecting  the  foremost  of  the 
three.     Let   it    then   be    observed  that   there   is   a 


xiv  INTRODUCTION. 

crucial  test  of  all  theories  of  the  origin  of  the  uni- 
verse. It  is  the  Catholic  dogma  of  the  creation : 
'-'  In  principio  Deus  creavit  coelimi  et  terrain^  It 
is  impossible  to  misconstrue  those  words ;  it  is 
equally  impossible  to  evade  them.  A  man  must 
accept  them  or  refuse  them.  If  he  hold  them 
frankly  and  honestly,  he  cannot  be  a  pantheist. 
If,  on  the  other  hand,  he  stagger  at  them,  and 
hesitate  about  receiving  them,  he  is  not  to  be  de- 
pended upon.  And  if  any  one  deny  them  outright, 
we  maintain  that  there  is  for  him  no  possible  choice 
save  between  the  schemes  of  Dualism  and  Panthe- 
ism. The  dogma  of  the  creation,  as  opposed  to  the 
hypothesis  of  emanation  or  that  of  development,  — 
a  dogma  sublime  above  all  others,  as  well  as  first 
of  all  in  order,  —  is  declared  to  us  in  the  Scriptures 
and  secured  to  us  in  the  Creed,  to  the  end  that  we 
may  be  forever  settled  and  established  in  the 
truth ;  that  the  dark  problem,  against  which  the  un- 
enlightened mind  has  ever  dashed  itself  in  fruitless 
striving,  may  be  cleared  up ;  that  we  may  have  a 
rational  and  satisfying  cosmogony ;  and  that  the 
whole  of  life  may  be  rendered  real  and  practical 
and  comprehensible  to  man.  When  that  dogma  is 
denied,  all  is  in  effect  denied.  When  the  belief  in 
a  God  who  created  the  world  has  been  lost,  all  is 
lost  that  is  stable  or  permanent  in  human  thought. 
If  the  theories  to  which  reference  is  hereinafter 
made  can  be  reconciled  with  the  first  article  of  the 


INTRODUCTION.  XV 

Christian  faith,  we  are  ready  to  withdraw  our  ob- 
jections to  those  schemes.  But  if,  on  the  contrary, 
it  be  found  impossible  to  harmonize  them  with  that 
article,  we  charge  them  with  being  radically  anti- 
christian ;  and  we  shall  classify  them  with  the  great 
traditional  heresy  of  the  ages,  until  cause  be  shown 
why  they  should  not  be  assigned  to  that  stock,  and 
until  it  be  proved  that,  as  to  leading  ideas  and  prac- 
tical results,  they  are  not  substantially  one  and  the 
same  with  it. 


LECTURES, 


LECTURE  I. 

THE   CHUKCH  A^D  PHILOSOPHY. 

The  seasons  of  Advent  and  Lent  have  been  from 
very  ancient  time  regarded  in  the  Church  of  Christ 
as  especially  suitable  for  the  work  of  instructing  the 
people  in  the  higher  mysteries  of  the  Faith.  There 
are  at  those  times  strong,  though  silent,  influences 
about  us  which  affect  the  heart  with  unusual  force, 
and  dispose  to  a  more  thoughtful  attention  to  the 
word  of  life ;  and  the  power  of  the  Spirit  is  upon  us 
then  in  fuller  measure  and  with  more  evident  effect. 
Accordingly  it  is  purposed,  by  God's  permission,  to 
devote  a  part  of  this  season  of  Lent  to  studies  of 
the  class  referred  to,  by  means  of  a  course  of  lec- 
tures, in  which  the  subject  shall  be  the  Existence 
OF  Almighty  God. 

They  who  watch  and  comprehend  the  current  of 
modern  thought,  will  not  feel  surprised  at  my  choice 
of  a  theme.  For  the  great  question  of  our  day  is 
about  the  Personality  of  the  Deity,  with  all  that  the 
term  implies.  It  is  not  in  dispute  whether  there 
1 


2  THE  CHURCH  AND  PHILOSOPHY. 

be,  or  be  not,  a  God ;  but  whether  the  God,  whose 
existence  is  in  terms  admitted,  be,  or  be  not,  a  Per- 
sonal God.  Upon  this  point  the  controversy  is 
joined.  On  the  one  hand,  we  find  a  series  of  prop- 
ositions, clear  and  intelligible,  concerning-  the  Al- 
mighty Being,  in  which  are  included  affirmations 
touching  His  eternity,  His  providence.  His  acts  in  the 
past.  His  purposes  in  the  future,  and  His  relations  to 
the  universe  and  to  mankind.  This  body  of  doctrine 
is  formulated  in  the  Creed  of  the  Catholic  Church. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  may  be  noticed  a  class  of 
expressions,  variable,  misty,  vague,  and  unintelligi- 
ble, concerning  a  somewhat  which  is,  for  convenience' 
sake,  styled  God.  These  constitute  a  kind  of  tissue 
in  which  are  packed  the  religious  thoughts  of  the 
free-thinkers  and  rationalizers  of  the  period.  It  is 
proposed  in  the  following  lectures  to  contrast  these 
two  ideas  of  the  Deity,  so  far  as  the  looseness  of  the 
latter  will  permit :  —  to  compare  the  dogma  and  the 
speculation,  the  substance  and  the  shadow,  the  truth 
and  the  fable,  the  reality  and  the  dream. 

In  position,  in  importance,  and  in  necessity,  this 
subject  stands  second  to  none. 

In  position  ;  because  the  question  about  the  exist- 
ence of  Almighty  God  precedes  all  others  that  can 
be  raised  whether  in  religion  or  in  philosophy. 

In  importance ;  because  He  hath  none  that  may 
be  compared  with  Him,  and  we,  without  Him,  are 
less  than  nothing. 


THE   CHURCH  AND  PHILOSOPHY.  S 

In  necessity  ;  because  of  the  rashness,  the  levity, 
the  io-norance  with  which  His  being-,  His  attributes, 
and  His  works  are  treated  of  or  referred  to  by  the 
writers  and  talkers  of  our  day. 

The  task  in  hand  is,  therefore,  approached  with 
serious  convictions  of  duty,  as  respects  the  honor  of 
the  Almighty  and  the  safety  of  the  souls  of  men. 
If  He  be  what  He  is  represented  to  be  in  the  Creed, 
then  is  the  rationalistic  conception  of  Him  an  out- 
rage on  His  majesty  and  a  libel  on  His  name.  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  Rationalists  are  correct,  then 
are  we  Christians  the  victims  of  a  delusion,  and  our 
hope  in  Him,  our  love  for  Him,  our  fear  of  Him,  are 
but  phases  of  childish  superstition. 

Let  me  open  this  great  theme,  by  drawing  a 
clear  and  sharp  distinction.  It  is  the  distinction 
between  the  Church  and  Philosophy.  All  who 
think  and  believe  as  the  Church  instructs  us,  have  a 
faith  ;  while  they  who  think  and  speculate  indepen- 
dently of  her  definitions,  can  rise  no  higher  than 
the  level  of  a  probable  opinion.  A  faith  is  the  gift 
of  God  to  us  in  the  Church ;  while  the  suggestion 
of  an  opinion  is  the  highest  attainment  of  Philos- 
ophy. 

The  Church  has  her  Creed.  It  is  unvariable  and 
fixed.  It  has  come  to  us  from  the  earliest  days. 
That  Creed,  so  far  as  it  relates  to  the  Most  High 
and  undivided  Trinity,  is  held  (and  we  rejoice  to 
remember  this)  by  multitudes  who  are  not  exter- 


4f  THE  CHURCH  AND  PHILOSOPHY. 

nally  in  union  with  us.  When,  therefore,  I  speak 
of  the  faith,  I  mean  the  belief  in  God  which  is  ex- 
pressed in  that  Creed ;  and  all  who  think  of  Him  as 
He  is  therein  described,  we  place  together  as  holding, 
so  far  forth,  the  Church  view,  the  Christian  idea. 

Upon  the  other  side  we  set  all  those  persons  who 
hold  opinions  at  variance  with  the  articles  of  the 
Creed,  and  we  comprehend  their  views  under  the 
general  name  of  philosophy.  We  do  this,  remem- 
bering that  the  themes  of  philosophy,  in  the  highest 
sense  of  the  word,  are  the  same  as  those  of  theology  ; 
that  the  chief  studies  of  the  ancient  philosophers 
were  about  God,  man,  the  soul,  our  duties,  and  our 
destinies;  and  that  it  is  possible  to  speculate  on  these 
subjects  independently  of  revelation.  Opinions  about 
Almighty  God,  when  formed  and  held  without  ref- 
erence to  the  Creed  of  the  Church,  may  be  termed, 
without  harshness,  philosophical  opinions ;  and  their 
maintainers  we  regard,  not  as  believers,  but  as  phi- 
losophers. There  were  schools  of  philosophy  in  the 
time  of  our  Lord  and  his  apostles ;  St.  Paul  refers 
to  them  and  warns  the  faithful  against  them.  There 
are  schools  of  philosophy  now,  in  our  own  day,  and 
in  our  own  land,  and  in  our  very  midst ;  and  we, 
who  stand  upon  the  apostolic  platform,  must  bear 
our  witness  against  them.  The  modern  schools  have 
as  little  authority  as  the  ancient;  whatever  they  may 
call  themselves,  we  owe  them  no  more  deference  or 
respect. 


THE  CHURCH  AND  PHILOSOPHY.  5 

We  class,  therefore,  under  the  head  of  philosophic 
speculation  all  those  views  which  differ  from  the 
standards  of  the  Church  ;  and  we  say,  that  if  a  man 
believes  the  Creed,  he  has  a  faith,  and  that  if  he 
denies  it  he  has  a  philosophy.  And  so,  in  the  phil- 
osophic schools  of  the  period,  we  shall  find  ideas 
very  different  from  those  entertained  and  taught  in 
the  Church.  We  shall  find  the  particular  views  of 
men,  stated  with  grace  of  diction,  presented  with 
plausibility,  defended  by  weighty  arguments,  asserted 
with  zeal,  full  often  recommended  by  the  pure  and 
moral  lives  of  their  maintainers.  But  yet  we  shall 
feel  that  these  men  are  offering  us  a  philosophy  and 
not  a  faith  ;  and  that  if  we  were  to  exchange  what 
we  have  received  for  what  they  would  give  we 
should  be  bartering  confidence  for  hesitation,  assur- 
ance for  doubt,  and  humble  trust  in  Another  for 
reliance  in  self. 

To  these  philosophic  schools  must  we  go,  however, 
in  order  to  learn  what  are  the  opinions  of  men  con- 
cerning Almighty  God.  Nor  shall  we  reck,  though 
among  these  schools  there  be  some  whose  members 
style  them  Christian  churches,  and  propose  their 
own  speculative  theories  for  consideration  as  Chris- 
tian doctrine.  On  the  contrary,  we  shall  regard  such 
claims  as  but  additional  instances  of  groundless 
opinions  on  the  part  of  their  maintainers.  To  hear 
such  claims  need  cause  us  no  surprise,  for  it  seems 
the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world  that  they  should 


6  THE  CHURCH  AND  PHILOSOPHY, 

be  made.  If  men  entertain  erroneous  views  of  God, 
of  Christ,  of  sin,  of  redemption,  it  would  seem  to 
follow  of  necessity  that  their  views  respecting  them- 
selves should  also  be  incorrect.  Since  the  philo- 
sophic schools,  exhibiting  no  stability,  vary  inces- 
santly in  their  opinions  about  Almighty  God,  we 
cannot  count  as  better  than  an  opinion  the  special 
views  which  they  may  hold  concerning  their  own 
corporate  character.  We  shall,  therefore,  go  to 
them,  whatever  they  may  style  themselves,  as  we 
would  go  to  schools  of  opinion,  which  in  fact  they 
are ;  and  from  them  we  shall  learn  how  the  human 
mind  thinks  of  God,  when  that  mind  has  shaken 
itself  free  from  the  restraints  of  law  and  has  re- 
jected the  traditions  of  the  past.  We  shall  then 
compare  these  results  with  the  articles  of  faith  as 
taught,  the  same  everywhere  and  always,  in  the 
Church;  and  thus  we  shall  obtain  the  double  advan- 
tage, first,  of  a  clearer  view  of  the  truth,  and  sec- 
ondly, of  a  more  loving  appreciation  of  its  worth 
and  power. 

But  a  difficulty  may  suggest  itself  to  the  mind 
of  some  one  here  present ;  a  question  may  arise 
upon  the  design  which  has  been  announced.  To 
some  it  may  appear  as  though  the  subject  chosen 
for  these  lectures  Avere  too  simple  a  one  to  admit 
of  protracted  discussion.  It  might  be  said,  all 
men,  or  almost  all,  believe  in  God.  All  admit 
His  existence  ;  all  do  Him  reverence,  and  confess 


THE   CHURCH  AND  PHILOSOPHY.  7 

their  obligation  to  obey  Him.  Why  then  select  a 
theme  about  which  there  is  practically  so  little  vari- 
ance among-  men  I  Why  not  rather  choose  some 
subject  distinctly  characteristic  of  the  system  of  the 
Church  ? 

Alas,  my  hearers,  these  are  but  assumptions. 
To  name  the  name  of  God  is  not  enough  ;  to  say 
that  a  man  believes  in  Him  is  not  enough  ;  to  admit 
His  existence  is  not  sufficient.  The  name  which 
you  give  Him  must  be  His  own  name,  and  not  the 
name  of  another.  The  faith  in  Him  must  not  be  an 
erroneous  faith,  but  a  true  one.  The  confession  of 
His  existence  must  accord  with  the  sublime  facts  of 
His  eternal  nature  and  being.  There  be  gods  many 
and  lords  many  in  these  days,  but  unto  us  there  is 
only  the  one  God,  the  very  and  the  true.  The 
doctrine  of  Almighty  God  is  indeed  the  first  of  all ; 
but  there,  at  the  threshold  and  at  its  mere  an- 
nouncement, men  stumble  and  fall.  Count  not  too 
surely  on  the  correctness  of  any  one's  conceptions 
of  Him  until  you  know  how  those  conceptions  have 
been  formed ;  whether  the  mind  has  humbled  itself 
before  His  word,  or  whether  the  will  has  marked 
out  for  itself  a  path,  and  struck  away  therein. 
There  is  not  perhaps  a  greater  want  at  this  hour,  a 
deeper  want,  a  more  urgent  want,  among  our  peo- 
ple, than  that  of  a  true  and  right  knowledge  of 
God.  Even  from  the  first  has  man  erred  therein. 
Our  first  parents  doubted  of  Him  ;  they  mistook  His 


8  THE   CHURCH  AND  PHILOSOPHY. 

character,  and  in  that  error  they  disbelieved  His 
word.  And  this  they  did,  although  He  was  with 
them  as  a  father  and  a  friend,  although  He  com- 
muned with  them  face  to  face,  and  called  them  by 
their  names.  It  is  a  strange  and  a  most  instructive 
picture.  With  them,  day  by  day ;  accustomed  to 
walk  with  them  among  the  trees  of  the  garden ; 
wont  to  reason  with  them  and  to  teach  them,  as  a 
parent  deals  with  the  child  :  not  even  then  did  the 
Lord  God  succeed  in  impressing  on  their  minds 
and  hearts  a  correct  idea  of  Himself.  They  mis- 
took Him  altogether.  They  thought,  "  He  will  not 
keep  His  word ;  and,  though  He  promise,  yet  He 
will  not  perform."  And  so,  they  considered,  that 
they  might  with  impunity  taste  the  forbidden  fruit, 
although  He  had  declared  in  their  ears,  "  in  the 
day  that  thou  eatest  thereof,  thou  shalt  surely  die." 
If  then,  in  Eden,  and  ere  yet  they  had  fallen  from 
original  righteousness,  our  first  parents  had  and 
acted  on  a  false  impression  of  God,  notwithstand- 
ing the  advantage  of  a  habitual,  a  most  intimate 
intercourse  and  communion  with  Him  ;  —  let  us  not 
marvel  that  aberrations  should  be  found  to-day, 
and  every  day,  and  everywhere  on  this  subject; 
aberrations  in  the  course  of  human  thought,  as 
men  plod  wearily  through  the  world.  Error  there 
is,  on  this  first  point,  on  this  fundamental  truth  ; 
error,  wide-spread  and  profound.  It  shall  be  shown 
to  you;  it  shall  be  set  before  you,  in  its  deepest 


THE   CHURCH  AND  PHILOSOPHY.  9 

shades  of  gloom ;  and  you  shall  see  what  horrible 
heresies  have  arisen  to  hide  from  our  eyes  the  Lord 
God  Almighty,  Creator  of  heaven  and  earth. 
You  shall  hear  of  schemes  of  doctrine  in  which  the 
true  idea  of  Him  has  vanished,  although  His  name 
be,  for  decency's  sake,  retained.  And  then  the 
ramifications  of  error  shall  be  traced ;  its  influence 
pointed  out;  its  tracks  and  footprints  noted  in 
places  where  they  were  unsuspected ;  until  you 
feel  that  for  want  of  knowledge  of  this  first  article 
of  the  Creed,  multitudes  are  in  actual  and  extreme 
peril ;  and  until  you  thank  the  good  Lord  for  pre- 
serving us  from  the  calamity  of  losing  the  truth,  as 
many  in  our  midst  have  lost  it  forever. 

To  proceed.  The  observations  already  made 
have  been  but  preliminary.  It  was  intended  to  in- 
troduce by  them  the  subject  to  which  your  close 
attention  is  to  be  called.  And  in  order  to  show  in 
what  course  we  are  to  journey  together,  I  would 
next  remark,  that  there  exists,  and  has  existed  from 
very  ancient  days,  a  certain  infidel  theory  which, 
though  not  widely  taught  at  the  present  time  in  its 
scientific  form,  underlies  most  of  the  popular  errors 
of  the  day.  It  concerns  the  nature  and  manner  of 
existence  of  Almighty  God,  and  it  may  be  regarded 
as  the  just  expression  of  the  cast  of  modern  philo- 
sophic thought  on  those  mysteries.  I  refer  to  the 
system  commonly  known  as  Pantheism.  That 
system  will  form  the  subject  of  our  studies  ;  and 


10  THE   CHURCH  AND  PHILOSOPHY. 

you  are  now  invited  to  a  comparative  view  of  the 
philosophic  theory  known  as  Pantheism,  and  of  the 
Christian  faith  as  contained  in  the  Creeds  of  the 
CathoUc  Church.  The  discussion  will  be  arranged 
as  follows :  — 

In  the  next  lecture,  it  is  proposed  to  state  the 
system  of  Pantheism  in  its  crude,  its  abstract,  its 
theoretic  form. 

In  the  third  lecture  of  the  course,  I  shall  endeavor 
to  show  under  what  shapes,  and  in  what  quarters 
we  meet  with  that  system  in  its  practical  operation  ; 
for  in  its  theoretic  form,  it  is,  as  yet,  hardly  known 
or  admitted  amongst  us. 

In  the  fourth  lecture,  the  consequences  and  results 
of  the  theory  will  be  pointed  out ;  since  in  these  we 
find  our  strongest  arguments  against  it. 

The  fifth  lecture  will  be  devoted  to  the  presenta- 
tion of  the  Christian  ideas  of  Almighty  God,  as 
gathered  from  that  revelation  of  Himself  which  He 
has  made  to  us  through  His  eternal  Son. 

And,  in  the  sixth,  and  closing  lecture,  we  shall 
contrast  the  life  of  one  who  holds  the  pantheistic 
scheme  with  that  of  the  believer,  and  exhibit  the 
probable  working  of  the  two  systems  in  the  way  of 
this  mortal  existence  and  at  the  hour  of  death. 

And  now  may  the  Holy  Spirit,  whose  aid  and 
blessing  we  invoke,  guide  the  preacher  and  the 
hearer  into  the  fuller  knowledge  and  deeper  love  of 
the  truth. 


THE   CHURCH  AND  PHILOSOPHY.  H 

In  bringing  these  introductory  observations  to  a 
conclusion,  two  suggestions  will  be  made  on  points 
connected  with  our  general  subject. 

The  first  is  this  :  that  while  the  word  Pantheism 
is  very  frequently  used,  the  system  known  by  that 
name  is  but  imperfectly  understood.     And  hence  it 
has  come   to  pass  that  careless,  ignorant,  or  inter- 
ested speakers  allow  themselves  the  widest  latitude 
in  its  employment ;  while  the  ordinary  hearer  gath- 
ers from  it  only  a  vague  and  uncertain  impression 
of  evil  because    he    knows    not    precisely  what   it 
means.     It  is  convenient  for  the  unlearned  to  have 
within  reach  some  high-sounding  term,  with  which 
to  lay  about    him,  in  emergencies,  to  the  surprise 
and    alarm  of   the  vulgar.     In    this    manner,    the 
term     "  Pantheism"    has    been  employed.     When 
the  partisan  does  not  know  precisely  what  to  say 
against  some  dogma  or  some  view  which    he  re- 
gards as  erroneous  or  unsound,  he  cries  out,  as  a 
last  resort,  that  it  is  pantheistic,  trusting  with  that 
wordy  blast  to  make  an  end.     But  such  a  charge, 
although  it  may  at  first  alarm,  through  its   power 
of  suggesting  a  freight  of  unknown  horrors,  soon 
ceases  to  terrify,  especially  if  too  frequently  repeat- 
ed ;  for  the  people,  attaching  no  very  precise  idea 
to  the  word,  are  not  likely  to  feel  the  proper  degree 
of  abhorrence  for  things  pantheistic,  because  they 
do  not  know  what  Pantheism  is.      Full  often    has 
the  preacher  heard  this  term  employed  in  a  loose, 


12  THE   CHURCH  AND  PHILOSOPHY. 

impracticable  way,  and  in  cases  where  there  was  no 
ground  at  all  for  the  charge.  For  this  reason,  the 
attempt  will  be  made  to  give  a  clear  definition  of 
the  word  and  an  intelligible  account  of  the  system. 
If  that  attempt  should  prove  successful,  the  result 
will  follow,  that,  while  you  recoil  from  that  dark, 
that  gloomy,  that  hopeless  theory  with  the  deepest 
horror,  you  will  at  the  same  time  have  formed  too 
clear  an  idea  of  it  to  be  in  danger  of  tracing  it  or 
thinking  that  you  see  it  where  it  is  not.  The 
remark  has  been  made  of  a  certain  great  commen- 
tator on  the  Holy  Scriptures,  deceased  some  two 
centuries  ago,  that  he  was  crazed  on  the  subject  of 
an  early  sect  of  heretics  known  as  the  Gnostics,  so 
that  there  was  hardly  a  chapter  in  St.  Paul's  Epis- 
tles, in  which  he  did  not  think  he  saw  allusion  to 
gnostic  opinions  or  gnostic  error.  Thus  has  it  been 
in  a  measure  with  Pantheism.  Men  cry  out  that  it 
is  here,  that  it  is  there,  whenever  they  meet  with  a 
difficulty  which  they  are  too  ignorant  or  too  lazy 
to  grapple  with  and  master,  or  whenever  they  would 
refute  a  doctrine  unpalatable  to  their  taste.  Thus, 
when  we  speak  of  Christ  as  having  the  common  hu- 
manity of  all  our  race,  some  cry  "  Pantheism !  "  Or, 
when  we  refer  to  all  the  faithful  as  truly  and  really  in 
Christ,  and  He  in  them,  there  are  well-meaning  folks 
who  utter  the  same  exclamation,  because  they  think 
that  they  ought  to  make  some  protest,  and  yet  can 
imagine  nothing  else  to  say.     But,  brethren,  all  error 


THE   CHURCH  AND  PHILOSOPHY.  18 

is  not  pantheistic.  And  our  attempt  to  explain  the 
system  will  involve  an  indirect  defence  of  certain 
doctrines  of  the  Church  ;  since  when  you  come  to 
know  wdiat  it  really  is,  you  will  perceive  how  idle  are 
some  of  those  charges  which  are  brought  by  sciolists 
against  the  mysteries  of  redemption. 

The  second  and  final  suggestion  for  your  thoughts, 
dear  brethren  in  Christ,  is  this :  that  studies  such  as 
those  now  proposed  may  help  to  prepare  us,  under 
the  blessing  of  God,  and  under  the  guidance  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  for  meeting  the  last  danger  which  comes 
on  the  inhabitants  of  the  earth,  as  the  end  of  the 
world  approaches.  We  are  told,  that,  before  the 
Lord's  return  to  judgment,  antichrist  shall  come. 
Who  is  antichrist]  and  whatl  The  answer  to 
these  questions  our  studies  in  philosophy  may  help 
to  furnish.  Be  not  misled.  Antichrist,  it  seems, 
is  more  likely  to  appear  in  the  habit  of  a  specula- 
tive philosopher  than  in  the  vestments  of  a  pope. 
The  real  antichrist,  I  think,  will  be  the  reason 
of  man ;  that  reason  in  its  final  attitude,  when, 
having  first  refused  the  guidance  of  revelation, 
having  despised  the  Church  and  thrown  away  the 
scriptures,  having  theorized  for  itself,  having  sought 
out  many  inventions  in  the  field  of  thought,  having 
announced  its  own  conclusions  as  the  sum  of  all 
wisdom  and  knowledge,  it  stands,  at  length,  erect 
and  defiant,  proclaiming  its  self-sufficiency  and  de- 
claring its  independence  of  any  God  above,  of  any 


14  THt:   CHURCH  AND  PHILOSOPHY. 

law,  tradition,  order,  faith  below.  Do  not  look  for 
antichrist  in  any  of  the  temples  of  the  Lord;  nor 
among"  men,  who,  however  grievously  they  may  have 
erred,  do  still  in  substance  hold  the  faith.  He  com- 
eth  not  that  way.  But  look  for  him  in  the  schools 
of  an  ungodly  speculation  ;  in  the  labyrinths  of  in- 
dependent thought;  in  the  pulpits  where  is  preached 
the  self-glorification  of  man.  That  is  the  road 
whereby  he  comes.  And  when,  according  to  proph- 
ecy, the  night  sets  in,  that  night  of  falsehood  and 
error  with  which  he  shall  obscure  the  knowledge 
of  God,  the  Lord  shall  save  us,  if  we  cling  to  the 
faith  once  delivered  to  the  saints,  utterly  refusing 
to  have  any  other  creed  than  that  of  ancient  time. 
And  so  shall  we  be  in  peace  ;  and  we,  the  Israel  of 
God,  shall  have  light  in  our  dwellings  ;  while  be- 
yond there  shall  not  be  an  house  where  there  is  not 
one  dead. 


PANTHEISM  IN  ITS  THEORETIC  FORM.         15 


LECTURE  II. 

PANTHEISM  IN    ITS   THEORETIC  FORM. 

In  the  opening'  lecture  of  this  course,  its  general 
subject  was  announced  to  be,  a  comparison  between 
tlie  speculative  theory  known  as  Pantheism,  and  the 
Christian  faith  as  contained  in  the  Creed.  It  is  now 
proposed  to  present,  in  its  scientific  form,  the  theory- 
referred  to,  and  to  show  what  is  the  pantheistic  con- 
ception of  God.  The  word  has  an  ill-starred  sound ; 
to  place  it  in  conjunction  with  the  symbol  of  the 
Catholic  faith  is  to  set  death  and  life  in  contrast. 
But  perhaps  the  term  would  be  less  appalling  if  bet- 
ter understood.  Regarded  at  a  distance,  the  spectre 
looms  before  us  with  formidable  mien  ;  but  it  might 
yield  to  a  vigorous  blow,  or  even  melt  in  the  ray  of 
a  light  held  full  in  front.  To  those  who  are  be- 
witched by  Pantheism  it  is,  indeed,  as  fatal  an  adver- 
sary as  a  man  could  encounter  on  his  pathway.  But 
there  is  actually  no  reason  why  any  one  should  be 
led  off  by  it.  For  it  is  marked  by  that  weakness 
wbich  belongs  to  the  illogical  and  the  absurd.  It 
is  repulsive,  it  is  cold.  It  has  grandeur,  but  that 
grandeur  is  the  grandeur  of  obscurity.  Its  lan- 
guage is  impressive,  but  this  results  from  a  profit- 


16        PANTHEISM  IN  ITS  THEORETIC  FORM. 

less  mysticism.  This  evening  we  will  consider  the 
theory  in  its  simple  and  abstract  form.  Afterwards, 
its  application  will  be  pointed  out,  and  its  falseness 
exposed.  In  all  this,  may  that  blessed  Spirit  be  our 
guide  whose  aid  we  still  invoke ! 

A  distinction  has  already  been  drawn  between  the 
Church  and  the  School  of  Philosophy.  The  Church 
is  that  divinely  appointed  institution  in  and  by  which 
the  simple  and  unalterable  revelation  of  God  is  pre- 
served in  the  world  and  everywhere  presented  to  man- 
kind. The  Philosophic  School,  on  the  other  hand, 
is  an  invention  of  human  origin,  where  changeful 
and  complex  opinions  are  ventilated  and  discussed. 
Now,  the  first  question  in  philosophy  is  that  which 
touches  the  existence  of  God,  and  the  second  con- 
cerns His  nature.  And  since  the  Church  and  the 
School  differ  mainly  in  this,  that  the  latter  perpetu- 
ally asks  questions  while  the  former  constantly  in- 
structs, the  first  article  of  the  Christian  fiiith  is 
that  which  declares  the  existence  of  the  Almighty, 
and  the  next  is  that  which  tells  us  who  and  what  He 
is,  and  what  He  has  done. 

Philosophy,  however,  (and  by  this  I  mean  the  hu- 
man reason  speculating  freely  without  reference  to 
revelation,)  admits  at  the  outset  that  there  is  a  God. 
To  do  this  is  doubtless  unavoidable ;  for  atheism  is 
moral,  intellectual,  and  spiritual  death,  and  genuine 
atheists  are,  and  always  have  been,  and  always  must 
be,  very  few  and  very  far  between.      Philosophy, 


PANTHEISM  IN  ITS  THEORETIC  FORM.        I7 

therefore,  repels  with  virtuous  indignation  the  charge 
of  denying  the  existence  of  a  Deity.  It  has  ever  been 
so.  The  ancient  schools  and  the  modern  were  alike 
in  this  point.  The  epicureans  and  the  stoics  whom 
St.  Paul  encountered  on  Mars'  Hill,  acknowledged, 
after  their  own  fashion,  the  gods.  The  rationalists 
of  to-day,  be  they  German,  French,  English,  or 
American,  admit  the  term  and  employ  the  sacred 
name;  and  among  the  leading  heresiarchs  might  be 
mentioned  some  who  have  expended  much  power  in 
framing  ingenious  demonstrations  of  a  religious 
character  to  show  that  there  is  a  Supreme  Being, 
and  to  clear  up  the  mystery  of  His  nature. 

It  is  not,  therefore,  on  the  question  whether  there 
be  a  God  that  the  Church  and  the  Philosophers  join 
issue.  So  far  they  agree.  But  when  they  go  on  to 
speak  of  His  nature  they  differ.  When  it  is  asked, 
"  What  is  God'?  "  the  systems  part,  never  to  meet 
again. 

The  ground  of  this  divergence  is  the  total  an- 
tagonism in  views  respecting  the  personality  of  the 
Deity.  Does  God  exist  as  an  impersonal  substance, 
like  air,  or  water  1  or  has  He  a  true  personality,  like 
men  '?     This  question  is  met  by  opposite  replies. 

The  Church  declares  a  personality  in  the  Deity;  a 
personality  in  the  highest  and  fullest  sense  of  the 
word.  She  teaches  her  children  to  believe,  that  as 
each  one  of  them  has  a  true,  distinct,  practical  per- 
sonality, so  likewise  is  it  with  the  God  who  made 


18        PANTHEISM  IN  ITS  THEORETIC  FORM. 

them  all.  Nay;  she  does  not  merely  say  that  what 
is  true  of  them  is  true  of  Him ;  she  implies  that  it 
is  true  of  Him  in  a  higher  sense,  in  a  completed 
sense.  So  that,  whatever  may  be  the  elements  of 
proper  personality,  they  exist  in  us  but  imperfectly, 
in  Him  with  absolute  fulness.  This  is  the  Catholic 
faith.  Philosophy,  on  the  other  hand,  opines  that 
God  has  no  personality ;  that  He  is  an  absolute,  om- 
nipresent, and  impersonal  substance ;  as  it  were,  an 
atmosphere  in  which  everything  lives  ;  a  heat  diffused 
in  which  everything  is  kept  warm ;  an  element  in 
which  everything  swims.  In  that  sense  philosophy 
considers  that  there  is  a  God,  and  admits  that  God 
to  be  eternal. 

The  personality  of  Almighty  God  is  either  in 
terms  or  by  implication,  incessantly  denied,  even  by 
those  who  admit  their  belief  in  His  existence.  This 
is  a  phenomenon  so  strange  as  to  invite  to  investi- 
gation. To  us  Christians  there  seems  to  be  a  con- 
tradiction here,  and,  although  the  persons  to  whom 
we  refer  may  not  be  aware  of  the  true  state  of  the 
case,  we  cannot  but  conjecture  that  there  is  some- 
thing behind  to  account  for  their  position.  The 
human  reason,  when  acting  in  pure  independence, 
is  the  least  logical,  the  most  unreasonable  agent  that 
can  be  named.  Still,  we  ought  not  to  ascribe  so 
singular  a  phenomenon  as  that  under  consideration 
to  mere  caprice,  unless  it  can  be  accounted  for  in  no 
other  way.     To  admit  that  there  is  a  God,  and  yet 


PANTHEISM  IN  ITS  THEORETIC  FORM.        IQ 

to  say  that  He  has  no  personal  qualities  or  attributes, 
sounds  indeed,  to  Christian  ears,  like  trifling  ;  it 
seems  as  much  as  to  say,  with  one  breath,  that  God 
is,  and  with  the  next,  that  He  is  not.  But  may 
there  not  be  something  behind  and  beyond  —  some- 
thing to  account  for  this  apparent  contradiction,  to 
harmonize  this  seeming  discrepancy  ?  May  we  not 
guess  at  a  basis  of  some  sort  on  which  these  state- 
ments rest,  and  may  there  not  be  some  baleful  light 
in  which,  if  viewed,  they  will  assume  a  horrible  con- 
sistency] I  think  and  hope  to  show  that  this  is  the 
case  ;  that  the  apparently  flippant  denials  of  God's 
providence,  and  power,  and  active  interest  and  inter- 
ference in  our  affairs,  are  all  cognate  to  a  philosophic 
scheme  of  great  gravity  and  importance ;  that  these 
assertions  are  not  the  assertions  of  levity,  but  the 
postulates  of  intellectual  rebellion  against  the  truth; 
that  these  opinions  are  not  mere  heterogeneous  notions 
thrown  carelessly  together,  or  uttered  just  as  they 
chance  to  rise  to  the  surface  in  the  seething-pot  of 
this  uneasy,  bubbling,  frothy  mind  of  ours,  but  part 
and  parcel  of  a  well-conceived  and  carefully  digested 
theory.  By  that  theory  only  can  they  be  explained. 
That  theory  is  the  theory  of  Pantheism.  So  that  if 
one  should  ask  what  the  popular  language  of  the  day 
means,  and  why  any  one  should  refuse  to  admit  a 
personality  in  Almighty  God,  why  any  man  should 
think  concerning  Him,  not  as  we  Christian  believers 
think,  but  as  if  He  were  like  unto  an  aeriform  fluid, 


20         PANTHEISM  IN  ITS  THEORETIC  FORM. 

a  gas,  a  force,  an  element,  the  true  answer  would  be 
that  the  explanation  of  these  strange  notions  must 
be  sought  in  the  theory  of  Pantheism,  It  is  not, 
of  course,  intended  to  say  that  all  who  hold  the  loose 
speech  so  often  heard  about  us  accept  and  profess 
the  system  to  which  that  kind  of  speech  belongs ; 
but  we  affirm  that  the  connection  between  the  sys- 
tem and  the  language  is  direct.  The  pantheistic 
theory  is  the  proper  and  natural  theory  of  intellec- 
tual philosophy  regarded  as  independent  of  revela- 
tion ;  and  by  it  only  can  these  conceptions,  which 
otherwise  were  mere  fantastic  crudities,  be  explained. 
Hence  may  be  inferred  the  vast  importance  of  an 
acquaintance  with  that  execrable  system  ;  for,  when 
once  a  man  has  mastered  it  he  will  know  the  real 
meaning  of  what  he  hears,  and  he  shall  never  again 
be  at  a  loss  to  explain  these  false,  delusive  dreams 
about  Almighty  God.  For  the  whole  system  is  one 
vast  dream,  one  shapeless  sea  of  gloom  and  woe, 
without  light,  w^ithout  life,  cold,  remorseless,  devour- 
ing —  an  abyss  in  which  all  honest  conviction  is  en- 
gulfed, all  manly  belief  buried  —  and  the  opinions  to 
which  we  have  referred  are  but  the  vapors  of  the 
surface  of  that  waste,  the  steam  from  its  unwhole- 
some face. 

Let  us  then,  without  delay,  proceed  to  consider 
the  theory  of  Pantheism  in  its  abstract  and  philo- 
sophic form,  that  having  measured  the  depth  thereof, 
and  having  learned,  by  lead  and  plummet,  the  foul- 


PANTHEISM  IN  ITS  THEORETIC  FORM.        21 

ness  of  the  slime  below,  we  may  forever  abhor  the 
system  as  it  deserves  to  be  abhorred,  and  denounce 
it  as  it  ought  to  be  denounced. 

The  theory  of  Pantheism  may  be  thus  expressed : 
it  asserts  the  unity  and  identity  of  substance,  and 
denies  to  the  finite  any  real  existence  apart  from  the 
infinite.  I  hasten,  however,  to  present  these  thoughts 
in  more  popular  terms.  It  is  held  by  the  main- 
tainers  of  the  system  now  under  consideration  that 
there  is  only  one  substance  throughout  the  universe. 
Of  that  substance  everything  is  formed.  The  sea 
and  the  dry  land,  the  mountain  and  the  river,  the 
bird  and  the  beast,  the  flowers  and  the  trees,  the 
bodies  and  souls  of  men,  the  skies,  the  stars,  the 
suns,  the  world,  the  universe  throughout,  all  are  of 
one  and  the  selfsame  substance.  It  matters  not 
what  differences  or  what  varieties  there  be  in  form, 
figure,  properties,  or  uses  ;  all  things  at  last  are  es- 
sentially one  and  the  same.  "  Unity  and  identity  of 
substance.^'  This  is  the  pantheistic  principle.  Earth, 
air,  fire,  water,  all  at  last,  Oiie.  The  ground  on 
which  you  walk  is  substantially  the  same  as  you  that 
walk  on  it.  The  book  in  which  you  read  is  of  the 
same  substance  as  your  mind  which  comprehends  it. 
This  pulpit  in  which  I  preach  is  of  the  same  sub- 
stance as  I.  All  things  one  and  the  same.  But 
where  is  God?  you  ask.  Ah,  brethren,  this  one 
substance  is  God  also.  This  substance  is  the  only 
God. 


££        PANTHEISM  IN  ITS  THEORETIC  FORM. 

But  how  (lid  the  world,  in  its  present  state,  come 
into  existence  %  That  is  the  question  which  the 
philosophers  profess  to  answer.  They  speak  with 
contempt  of  the  Catholic  dog-ma  of  creation,  styling 
it  "  The  Manufacture  Theory."  They  find  it  impos- 
sible to  conceive  of  a  Deity  who  is  able  to  cause 
anything  to  be  which  was  not  before ;  and  they  pro- 
pose to  give  us  in  place  of  the  ridiculous  idea  of  a 
production,  by  manufacture,  as  they  term  it,  a  ra- 
tional, intelligible,  and  satisfactory  explanation  of 
the  origin  of  the  universe.  Let  us  hear  this  ex- 
planation and  consider  how  charmingly  it  smoothes 
the  way  before  us,  and  how  admirably  it  is  fitted  to 
satisfy  the  religious  and  candid  mind. 

The  universe  was  not  created ;  it  came  by  devel- 
opment or  emanation.  Does  any  one  comprehend 
what  that  means  \ 

If  it  means  anything  intelligible,  or  if  we  may 
gather  its  meaning  by  study  of  the  whole  tenor  of 
their  thoughts,  that  meaning  would  seem  to  be  as 
follows  : — 

There  is  but  one  single  substance  throughout  the 
universe.  That  substance  is  eternal ;  there  never 
was  a  time  before  which  it  was  not.  So  existinsf 
from  eternity,  it  had  no  personality  nor  any  quali- 
ties, attributes,  or  powers,  such  as  we  understand  to 
belong  to  persons  and  to  constitute  them  such.  It 
was  without  consciousness,  without  knowledge,  with- 
out activity.      It  was;    no  more.     The  idea  thus 


PANTHEISM  IN  ITS  THEORETIC  FORM.        28 

presented  to  us  is  that  of  a  vast,  illimitable  flood  ; 
of  a  great,  unfathomable  deep  ;  of  a  hollow  silence, 
a  heavy  unconsciousness,  a  condition,  mute,  speech- 
less, thoughtless.  Imagine,  if  you  can,  this  inde- 
scribable, this  immense  condition,  or  mass,  or  state, 
(or  by  whatever  name  you  may  choose  to  call  it,)  and 
you  have  before  you  the  only  eternal  being.  Let  us 
apply  to  it,  for  the  sake  of  convenience,  the  term 
God. 

Such,  then,  from  eternity ;  still,  sombre,  vast, 
infinite ;  without  knowledge,  or  thought,  or  action, 
or  result ;  such  would  this  substance  ever  have  re- 
mained but  for  an  agency  within  itself.  That  agency 
was  a  kind  of  inner  movement.  The  mass  so  in- 
describable, so  incomprehensible,  was  agitated  from 
within  by  an  equally  indescribable  and  incomprehen- 
sible motion.  There  was,  from  within,  a  tendency 
toward  the  surface.  The  great  belly  of  blackness 
and  unconscious  horror,  rumbled  as  it  were,  and  the 
abyss,  for  it  seems  no  better,  was  in  labor  and  would 
bring  forth.  The  result  of  this  movement  was  seen 
in  the  uprising  of  certain  definite  forms  and  shapes. 
The  substance,  working  from  within,  threw  itself  out 
into  visible  phenomena.  Thus,  there  came  forth  a 
sky  ;  and  thus  by  aggregation  stole  forth  the  planets 
and  the  stars.  And  thus,  to  limit  ourselves  to  this 
mundane  sphere,  the  round  world  resulted  from  that 
inner  force.  The  earth  was  then  a  part  of  that 
eternal   substance,  localized  ;  a  finite  form  of  that 


£4        PANTHEISM  IN  ITS   THEORETIC  FORM. 

infinite.  And  since  that  substance  was  God,  there- 
fore the  earth  was  God.  It  was  God  made  visible 
in  the  form  of  ground,  and  seas,  and  hills,  and  plains. 
The  same  is  affirmed  of  all  the  animals.  They 
were  forms  thrown  out  from  that  inner  germination, 
all  of  the  same  substance,  and  all  parts  of  God,  or 
realizations  of  God. 

We  have  next  to  hear  the  pantheistic  explanation 
of  the  existence  of  mankind.  It  has  been  remarked 
that  the  eternal  substance  now  spoken  of  and  which 
the  pantheists  call  God,  had,  at  first,  no  knowledge 
and  no  consciousness.  When,  agitated  by  the  inner 
motive  force,  it  threw  itself  out  into  visible  forms, 
as  described,  each  of  those  forms  expressed  some 
tendency,  some  capability  of  this  eternal  substance. 
But  as  yet  it  had  no  consciousness,  there  was  nought 
but  a  blind  appetency,  and  a  pushing  forth  on  every 
hand,  and  a  groping  in  and  through  the  gloom.  At 
length,  however,  the  time  arrived  at  which  a  higher 
development  should  take  place.  For  out  of  these 
unconscious  efforts  there  was  at  length  evolved  a 
higher  form  than  any  which  had  yet  occurred.  This 
new  phenomenon,  so  thrust  upward  as  from  the  inner 
heave  and  surge  of  the  vast  womb,  in  some  manner 
not  explained,  suddenly  advanced  to  the  perception 
of  its  own  existence.  This  fraction  of  the  eternal 
substance  suddenly  perceived  the  fact  expressed  in 
the  words,  "  I  exist,  I  am."  It  saw  that  it  was. 
It  beheld  in  front  of  it  the  universe ;  it  perceived 


PANTHEISM  IN  ITS  THEORETIC  FORM.        25 

itself  to  be  therewith,  face  to  face.  It  was  conscious 
at  length ;  the  infinite  substance  thought  and  rea- 
soned and  took  counsel  with  itself  at  last.  This 
was,  of  course,  God.  It  was  God  arriving  at  a 
higher  development  than  any  yet  reached.  It  was 
God  coming  to  the  consciousness  of  Himself.  When 
God  was  only  that  great  illimitable  waste,  God  had 
no  knowledge  of  His  own  existence,  no  person- 
ality, no  power.  When  God  developed  into  stars, 
and  suns,  and  an  earth,  there  was  as  yet  no  person- 
ality, because  they  are  not  persons  but  things,  and 
they  were  but  the  substance, — God  realized  in  forms. 
When  God  developed  into  trees  and  animals,  there 
were  motion,  and  force,  and  appetite,  and  instinct, 
but  no  more.  When,  however,  at  the  last,  God  took 
this  higher  form  and  passed  to  consciousness,  then, 
for  the  first  time,  God  saw  Himself;  God  became 
fully  aware  of  His  own  existence  ;  God  arrived  at 
the  knowledge  of  God  in  becoming  man.  Man 
is  a  developed  form  of  the  Eternal  Being ;  he  is 
that  being  reasoning,  thinking,  perceiving,  know- 
ing, speaking.  That  substance  never  reasoned,  nor 
thought,  nor  perceived,  nor  knew,  nor  spake,  before. 
And  that  substance  is  eternal  and  is  the  only  God ; 
and,  therefore,  God  perceives  not,  nor  knows,  nor 
reasons,  nor  thinks,  nor  speaks,  but  in  man.  There 
is  the  sequence,  the  clear,  necessary  conclusion  from 
the  premises.  Man  is  God  come  to  consciousness 
of  Himself;  and  God  has  no  personality,  and  no 
consciousness  but  in  man. 


£6        PANTHEISM  IN  ITS  THEORETIC  FORM. 

This,  my  hearers,  is  the  philosophic  theory  which 
underUes  the  speculative  infidelity  of  the  present  age 
and  the  present  generation.  I  leave  to  another  lec- 
ture the  work  of  tracing  in  its  indications  a  view  too 
monstrous,  too  forbidding,  to  be  openly  and  boldly 
taught,  and  would  therefore  limit  the  remainder  of  this 
evening's  observations  to  reflection  on  the  prospect 
to  which  that  theory  would  invite  us.  Look  about 
you,  then,  and  consider  how,  according  to  that  sys- 
tem, you  must  interpret,  and  how  understand,  the  phe- 
nomena which  meet  your  eyes.  All  that  you  behold 
is  the  one  eternal  substance  in  divers  forms.  There 
is  nothing  eternal  but  that  substance.  The  forms 
are  not  eternal ;  that  only  is  eternal  of  which  they 
are  made  up.  So  that  all  which  you  see  is  part 
and  parcel  of  God.  There  never  was  a  creation. 
The  story  in  Genesis  about  the  six  days  is  but  a 
fable.  There  is  no  Creator,  and  therefore  nothing 
was  made.  All  things  have  come  to  be  what  they 
are  in  their  own  times  and  seasons  by  development, 
without  a  plan,  without  a  purpose,  without  the  guid- 
ance and  direction  of  a  mind.  An  impersonal  and 
eternal  substance  is  the  only  God.  These  outward 
shapes  on  which  we  look  are  the  figures  which  that 
impersonal  essence  has  taken,  without  consciousness 
and  without  method.  All  visible  phenomena  are 
God;  God  under  certain  conditions  of  size,  of  color, 
of  property.  Look  at  the  dull,  inert  stones  of  the 
wilderness ;  it  is  God  sleeping.  Look  at  the  brutes 
endowed  with  instinct,  but  without  intellect;  that  is 


PANTHEISM  IN  ITS  THEORETIC  FORM.        ^7 

God  dreaming.     Look  at  the  thing  which  we  call 
man  ;     that  is  God   thinking,  reasoning,   desiring, 
willing.     The  sky  spread  over  all  in  its  vaporous, 
palpitating  blue ;  that  is  the  eternal  substance  spread- 
ing itself  forth  as  a  firmament  above.      The  seas 
slow  heaving  to  the  sunlight,  or  dark  below  the  noc- 
turnal shade  ;  they  are  the  same  eternal  substance, 
moaning  through  zone  and  hemisphere  in  blind  pur- 
suit of  higher  realizations.      The  mountain  ranges, 
those  spinal  columns  of  this  earthly  frame,  they  are 
but  God,  the  eternal  substance,  consolidated  in  pro- 
gressive development.     Nor  may  the  survey  cease 
at  this  point.     As  with  material  nature  so  with  spir- 
itual ;    they  are  one.      The  mind  of   man  is  sub- 
stantially one  with  his  body.     The  spirit,  the  soul, 
the  affections,  have  no  real  existence  apart  from  the 
corruptible  frame  in  which  they  dwell.     They  are 
but  hio^her  manifestations  of  the  same  eternal  sub- 
stance,  the  highest  to  which,  by  inward  movement, 
it  has  yet  attained.*     And  as  for  all  and  each  of 
these,  material  and  immaterial,  corporeal  and  spir- 
itual alike,  no  one  of  them  has  promise  or  prospect 
of  permanence,  for  nothing  is  eternal  but  that  one 
universal    substance,  and  no    mind    guides  its    de- 
velopment ;    therefore,  there  can  be  no    foretelling 
its  future  directions.     The  skies,  the  seas,  the  hills, 
may  all  pass  away,  and  other  formations  take  their 
place.     A  few  years  and  there  may  be  left  no  insect, 
no  bird,  no  gentle  beast.      A  few  ages  and  there 
*  See  Note  A. 


28        PANTHEISM  IN  ITS  THEORETIC  FORM. 

may  exist  no  trace  of  man.  The  substance  which 
now  shows  itself  in  these  present  forms  is  ever  agi- 
tated from  below  and  from  within ;  and  not  one  form 
is  permanent;  not  the  earth,  not  man,  not  the  soul. 
All  came  forth  by  unconscious  and  unintelligent  de- 
velopment. All  is  moving  on  and  passing  away. 
The  finite  has  no  real  existence.  Man  himself  is 
but  a  transient  phenomenon,  —  a  shadow,  —  and  all 
his  works  are  dreams  rather  than  realities.  Before 
this  world  was  evolved  there  was  no  personal  agent 
to  determine  what  should  be;  and  now  that  it  ex- 
ists there  is  no  reason  why  it  should  remain ;  no  will 
orders  its  continuance,  no  intelligent  power  keeps  it 
in  being.  There  is  not  a  form  that  hath  permanency; 
there  is  nothing  visible  or  invisible  that  can  last. 
The  material  of  yonder  columns  is  fully  as  durable 
as  your  souls  ;  the  whole  thing  is  but  a  passing 
show.  All  came  forth  out  of  darkness;  all  is  drawn 
in  perpetually  and  swallowed  up.  Everything  per- 
ishes but  the  one  substance;  that  does  not  perish, 
for  that  is  God. 

To  revolt  with  horror  from  this  appalling  theory, 
to  cry  aloud  against  it,  to  stop  the  ear  to  its  merci- 
less, its  diabolical  utterances,  this  must  surely  be  the 
course  of  every  healthy  mind.  In  its  naked  form, 
as  now  presented,  it  might  be  almost  universally  re- 
pelled and  rejected.  But  I  maintain  that  this  is  the 
system  on  which  all  the  speculative  infidelity  of  our 
age  does  actually  rest,  and  that  it  contains  the  only 


PANTHEISM  IN  ITS  THEORETIC  FORM.        29 

logical  explanation  of  the  popular  heresies  touching 
the  impersonality  of  the  Divine  Being.  This  con- 
sanguinity it  will  be  my  design  in  the  next  lecture  to 
display  so  clearly  that  even  the  unlearned  must  rec- 
ognize it.  And,  to  approach  the  conclusion  of  the 
present  remarks,  let  no  one  flatter  himself  with  the 
idea  that  a  system  such  as  this  could  never  attain  a 
hold  upon  the  public  mind.  Why  might  it  not? 
What  should  restrain  its  growth  were  it  not  resisted 
and  kept  under  by  the  word  and  sacramental  power 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  1  There  are  parts  of  the  globe 
to-day  wherein  this  system  flourishes  as  the  basis  of 
the  popular  religion ;  and  even  here,  where  we  hold 
high  conceptions  of  our  intelligence,  there  are  writ- 
ers and  teachers  whose  thoughts  are  steeped  in  this 
poisonous  compound,  and  who,  notwithstanding,  are 
esteemed  and  eulogized  as  the  wisest  and  most  ju- 
dicious of  men.  But  while  we  admit  with  shame 
that  this  is  the  case,  we  are  glad  to  remember  the 
history  of  the  past  and  to  observe  how  certainly  the 
truth  reasserts  itself,  though  for  the  time  depressed. 
Wherever  they  have  thrown  away  the  glorious  faith 
in  the  living  God  and  have  lain  them  down  in  pan- 
theistic dreams,  the  race  has  declined,  men  have 
fallen  into  degradation  and  intellectual  torpor,  and 
the  way  for  the  inevitable  reaction  has  been  prepared. 
In  time  the  truth  avenges  itself.  It  did  so  memora- 
bly in  the  seventh  century.  About  the  year  of  our 
Lord  600,  when  the  East  lay  sleeping  and  buried  in 


so        PANTHEISM  IN  ITS   THEORETIC  FORM. 

the  philosophic  stupor,  its  Hmbs  relaxed,  its  energies 
gone,  on  a  sudden,  and  in  the  dead  midnight,  the 
avenger  came.  There  arose  in  Arabia  a  man  mighty 
in  word  and  deed,  whose  mission  seemed  to  be  (and 
I  doubt  not  that  he  had  a  mission)  to  revive  that 
grand,  that  sacred  truth,  the  personality  and  unity 
of  God.  Mohammed  did  not  live  in  vain.  Infidel 
though  he  was,  impostor  though  he  was,  he  yet 
spake  truth  when  he  denied  the  pantheistic  lie,  when 
he  asserted  a  God  creator  of  heaven  and  earth,  w^hen 
he  affirmed  that  God  alone  is  from  eternity,  that  all 
things  were  made  by  His  mind.  His  hand.  His  will, 
that  He  and  His  universe  are  in  substance  distinct. 
That  was  the  creed  of  Mohammed.  In  that  name 
the  scimitars  flashed  to  the  light.  In  that  name 
those  scimitars  swept  the  rank  fields  like  the  sickles 
through  the  standing  grain.  In  that  name  his  fol- 
lowers overran  the  East,  the  Persian  empire  and  old 
Assyria,  the  African  wilds,  the  far  Cathay,  the  shores 
of  Indus  and  the  Ganges.  It  was  but  one  word  of 
truth  against  the  brood,  voluminous  and  intermina- 
ble, of  philosophy.  One  word  of  truth,  but  tliat 
word  enough,  the  truth  that  God  is  God.  Before 
the  Saracens  everything  fell,  simply  because  there 
was  life  in  their  creed,  and  because  the  countries  that 
they  overran  were  morally,  intellectually,  spiritually, 
physically  dead.  Before  the  Saracens  everything 
fell.  Everything,  for  a  time,  but  not  forever.  Every- 
thing, till  they  were  met,  at  the  West,  by  the  soldiers 


PANTHEISM  IN  ITS  THEORETIC  FORM.        31 

of  the  cross;  by  men  who  had  a  higher  faith,  a 
fuller  knowledge,  even  the  faith  in  the  high  and  un- 
divided Trinity,  sublimest  of  all  truths,  the  faith  in 
Jesus  Christ  and  Him  crucified,  grandest  and  most 
consoling  of  all  that  the  mind  of  man  hath  received. 
There,  against  the  cross-hilted  swords  of  the  good 
knio'hts,  was  the  scimitar  broken.  But  elsewhere 
it  did  its  work  and  well.  Remember  now  for  your 
comfort,  that  its  main  strength  lay  in  its  proclama- 
tion of  one  personal  and  living  God  to  people  who 
denied  that  personality  and  who  confounded  the  Cre- 
ator and  His  works.  And  I  would  ask,  in  conclu- 
sion, if  this  were  the  case  when  human  agents  alone 
were  visibly  engaged,  —  if  the  mere  idea  of  the  exist- 
ence of  such  a  being  could  so  transform,  strengthen, 
nerve  the  men  who  held  it,  —  if  the  absence  of  that 
idea  could  so  have  demoralized  and  degraded  the 
men  who  had  lost  it,  —  what  should  be  the  effect  of 
the  appearance  among  us  of  that  very  Being  himself] 
He  Cometh  now,  He  cometh  at  the  last.  Oh  that  it 
be  not  in  burning  wrath  against  the  falsehoods  of 
mankind !  Oh  that  it  be  not  in  judgment,  but  in 
mercy !  But  be  it  as  it  may,  cease  we  not  our 
confession  of  Him  as  He  is  revealed"  unto  us  in  the 
Church's  Creed;  and  as  for  the  theories  of  the  schools 
of  the  day,  let  them  be  to  us  as  the  accursed  thing 
wherein  the  children  of  the  Lord  will  have  no  deal- 
ings whatever,  lest  they  commit  folly  in  Israel  and 
be  consumed  at  the  last  and  awful  account. 


82  PANTHEISM  IN  ITS  APPLICATIONS. 


LECTURE  III. 

PANTHEISM  IN  ITS  APPLICATIONS. 

It  was  our  object,  in  the  preceding  lecture,  to 
present  the  system  commonly  known  by  the  name 
of  Pantheism,  in  its  correct,  scientific  form.  You 
are  now  aware  that  the  word  is  not  a  mere  vague 
term,  nor  one  which  may  be  loosely  applied  to 
almost  any  error  against  which  the  controversialist 
may  desire  to  protest ;  but  that  it  is  the  distinctive 
appellation  of  a  theory  as  clear,  as  consistent,  as  in- 
telligible as  any  that  the  mind  of  man  or  devil  ever 
framed  to  hide  the  truth  of  God. 

Having  displayed  the  scheme  in  its  crude  form 
and  in  its  technical  expression,  our  next  step  must 
be  to  trace  it  in  its  practical  applications.  The 
system  has  a  history  of  its  own.*  It  is  first  en- 
countered by  the  student  when  he  investigates  the 
Brahminism  of  India  ;  and  it  formed  the  basis  of 
the  Egyptian  and  Chaldean  religions,  and  of  the 
philosophy  of  Greece.  It  was  revived  by  the  Al- 
exandrine school,  in  the  vain  attempt  to  resist  and 
oppose  the  advancing  power  of  the  faith  of  Jesus 
Christ.  In  the  Middle  Ages  it  again  appeared ; 
*  Sec  Note  B. 


PANTHEISM  IN  ITS  APPLICATIONS.  83 

and  after  some  preludes  and  preparatory  motions,  it 
burst  forth  once  more,  full  formed,  in  the  fifteenth 
and  sixteenth  centuries.  In  modern  times  it  has 
been  taught  with  assiduity  by  the  French  and  Ger- 
man metaphysicians,  who  have  accurately  reproduced 
the  principles  of  the  ancient  paganism  ;  and  from 
these  new  sources  its  leading  ideas  have  been  once 
more  diffused  throughout  the  province  of  human 
thought,  in  all  their  traditional  antagonism  to  natural 
and  revealed  religion. 

You  must,  therefore,  observe  that  there  has  been; 
in  the  world  from  very  ancient  times  a  vast  meta- 
physical and  historic  doctrine,  invented  by  men,  and 
displacing  the  revelations  made  to  them  from  time 
to  time  by  our  heavenly  Father.  Towards  this 
scheme  the  mind  naturally  gravitates  the  instant  it 
throws  away  the  ideas  of  submission  and  obedience, 
and  enters  upon  the  path  of  free  and  licentious 
speculation.*  This  theory  is  now  alive  and  active  ; 
and  it  forms  the  secret  inspiration  of  the  rationalistic 
systems  of  the  day.  We  do  not  assert  that  it  is 
held,  to  any  considerable  extent,  in  the  shape  in 
which  it  was  exhibited  in  the  preceding  lecture. 
Few  writers  or  speakers  in  this  community  would 
openly  profess  the  pantheistic  creed  in  the  terms  in 
which  it  has  been  formalized  abroad.  But  we  claim 
that  the  system  has  attained  to  an  influence  unsus- 
pected   by    those    who  have    not   looked  into    this 

*  See  Note  C. 
3 


84  PANTHEISM  IN  ITS  APPLICATIONS. 

subject  with  attention.  The  historic,  ethical,  and 
psychological  schemes  of  the  "  liberal "  writers  of 
the  day  have  been  framed  alongside  of  this  great 
heresy;  and  the  popular  idea  of  progress,  apart 
from  Christianity,  and  independent  of  religion  and 
revelation,  is  but  an  application  of  its  fatal  princi- 
ples. The  doctrine  of  which  we  speak  is  every- 
where and  in  everything.  Its  signs  may  be  traced 
in  quarters  where  the  word  "  Pantheism"  is  repudi- 
ated. Its  presence  may  be  discovered  in  the  very 
midst  of  those  who  know  it  not  by  name.  Its 
secret  w^orkings  are  betrayed  in  speculations  ac- 
counted harmless  by  the  characteristic  indifference 
of  the  day.  If  this  be  so,  and  if  the  age  be  full  of 
pantheistic  tendencies,  if  the  metaphysical,  moral, 
and  social  sciences  be  infected  with  them,  though 
their  maintainers  and  teachers  ignore  or  conceal  the 
fact,  then  must  it  be  a  matter  of  prime  importance 
to  trace  the  influence  and  operations  of  the  system 
wherever  they  may  be  discerned,  and  to  show  how 
men  may  be  tempted,  seduced,  tainted,  poisoned  by 
it  almost  at  unawares. 

But  let  me  dwell  for  a  moment  on  the  fact  that 
a  system  may  exercise  great  power  even  where  in 
its  theoretic  shape  it  is  not  understood.  A  man 
needs  not  to  have  an  intelligent —  or,  so  to  express 
it,  a  philosophical  —  knowledge  of  a  system,  in  order 
to  be  influenced  or  governed  by  it.  Although  quite 
ignorant  of  it,  he  may  notwithstanding  be  wholly  in 


PANTHEISM  IN  ITS  APPLICATIONS.  85 

its  power.  Much  of  our  action,  physical  and  moral, 
is  involuntary  action.  Take,  for  example.  Christians 
in  general,  how  few  there  are  who  have  a  thorough 
and  what  we  should  call  a  scientific  knowledge  of  all 
the  articles  of  the  Creed !  It  is  not  necessary  that 
they  should.  The  scientific  knowledge  of  the  faith 
is  what  we  term  the  "  Science  of  Theology."  But 
theology  is  the  study  of  a  very  limited  number.  It 
is  not  necessary  that  every  Christian  should  be  a 
theologian  ;  it  is  neither  necessary  nor  possible.  To 
hold  the  Creed,  to  live  thereafter,  to  be  moulded  by 
Church  principles,  to  be  thus  fitted  for  heaven,  all 
this  may  be  without  any  scientific  theological  ac- 
quaintance with  the  dogmas  of  religion.  Nor  is 
this  true  alone  of  things  ethical  and  spiritual ;  it  is 
true  of  things  physical  as  well.  How  little  is  ordi- 
narily known  of  the  science  of  common  things ! 
What  a  world  of  wisdom  and  wonder  is  there  all 
about  us,  and  yet  how  little  is  it  understood  !  But 
such  scientific  acquaintance  with  the  material  world 
is,  for  the  masses  of  the  community,  unnecessary 
and  unattainable.  A  knowledge  of  the  science  of 
anatomy  is  not  indispensable  to  enable  one  to  walk. 
He  who  is  ignorant  of  even  the  rudiments  of  phys- 
iology digests  and  breathes  as  well  as  the  profound- 
est  student  of  that  branch  of  knowledge.  The  sol- 
dier fights  well  and  wins  the  victory  though  he  have 
no  conception  of  the  plan  of  the  battle.  But  what 
is  true  of  the  good  is  just  as  true  of  the  evil.     What 


86  PANTHEISM  IN  ITS  APPLICATIONS. 

is  true  of  Catholic  theology  is  just  as  true  of  heresy. 
As,  on  the  one  hand,  a  man  may  guide  his  way  by 
holy  principles  with  which  he  has  no  formal  ac- 
quaintance, and  may  beautifully  exemplify  in  his  life 
the  power  of  a  system  which  he  would  be  utterly  at 
a  loss  to  comment  on  or  to  explain,  so  on  the  other 
hand  may  a  man  be  holding  and  acting  on  principles 
subversive  of  revelation,  while  he  is  without  a  sus- 
picion of  their  origin,  their  connections,  their  con- 
sequences. The  very  man  who  would  revolt  at  the 
theory  of  Pantheism  nakedly  stated,  may  yet  be  hold- 
nig  the  essentials  of  that  system.  He  may  be  advo- 
cating pure  pantheistic  principles,  though  he  knows 
nought  of  the  scientific  form  of  that  monstrous 
scheme.  Two  things,  therefore,  are  necessary:  First, 
to  see  the  thing  itself  just  as  it  is,  to  discern  its  form 
and  features,  to  visit  the  lair  and  to  look  at  the  mon- 
ster in  the  remote  retired  places  of  its  retreat ;  and 
secondly,  to  trace  its  footprints  outside,  to  show 
where  it  has  been  and  how  it  has  wrought,  though 
itself  unseen,  to  convince  men  in  a  word  that  they 
may  be  its  bond-slaves,  though  they  have  never  looked 
on  the  face  of  their  tyrant.  The  former  of  these 
necessary  works  was  performed  in  the  preceding 
lecture.  To  the  latter  will  this  present  lecture  be 
devoted. 

What,  then,  are  the  offspring  of  this  most  repul- 
sive parent  ]  and  what  the  brood  which  comes  forth 
from  this  abominable  womb '?     Let  us  consider. 


PANTHEISM  IN  ITS  APPLICATIONS.  37 

The  crime  of  Pantheism  is  this  :  that  it  removes 
God  entirely  from  the  scheme  of  the  universe.  It 
leaves  no  place,  no  work  for  God.  It  is  a  theory 
with  which  the  idea  of  a  personal,  an  intelligent,  a 
living',  thinking,  speaking,  acting  God  is  wholly  in- 
compatible. Although  it  admit  the  terms  "  God  " 
and  "the  Deity,"  yet  it  does  so  merely  for  con- 
venience or  as  a  concession  to  the  popular  belief. 
But  the  personal  God,  the  eternal  God,  the  creator, 
the  ruler,  the  redeemer,  the  judge,  the  God  who  is 
infinitely  distinct  from  his  works,  this  God  has  no 
place  in  the  pantheistic  scheme. 

The  leading  principles  of  the  scheme  are  these : 

Firstly,  that  the  universe  is  substantially  eternal. 

Secondly,  that  things  are  what  they  are,  not  by 
creation,  but  by  emanation  and  development. 

Thirdly,  that  the  order  of  events  is  not  determined 
by  a  mind  outside  the  world,  but  is  a  sequence  from 
laws  within  it. 

Fourthly,  that  all  movement  and  advance  and  ac- 
cession are  from  within  and  not  from  w^ithout. 

It  may  therefore  be  stated  as  probable  or  certain 
that  all  propositions,  all  theories,  all  views  which 
suppose  or  imply  the  absence  of  a  personal  God,  and 
attach  a  quality  of  dignity,  sufficiency,  divinity,  to 
finite  things,  are  logically  connected  with  the  dark 
and  hopeless  system  of  which  we  are  treating,  and 
ought  to  be  referred  to  it  as  to  their  genealogical 
tree.  I  propose  to  illustrate  this  proposition  by 
reference  to  these  six  tendencies  of  our  day. 


38  PANTHEISM  IN  ITS  APPLICATIONS. 

Firstly,  the  tendency  to  assign  to  the  world  a  very 
high  antiquity. 

Secondly,  the  tendency  to  make  of  history  a  fa- 
tuitous  and  fatal  sequence  of  events. 

Thirdly,  the  tendency  to  represent  mankind  as 
having  been  originally  a  set  of  barbarians  but  little 
if  at  all  above  the  brutes. 

Fourthly,  the  tendency  to  exalt  the  human  reason 
above  revelation. 

Fifthly,  the  tendency  to  affect  an  ignorance  about 
God. 

And  sixthly,  the  tendency  to  deny  all  and  any  ob- 
jective truth. 

There  are  many  developments  of  Pantheism  be- 
sides these,  but  to  the  consideration  of  these  will 
our  present  remarks  be  limited. 

And  first.  We  often  hear  the  Mosaic  account  of 
the  creation  impugned  on  the  ground  that  the  world 
must  be  much  older  than  that  account  would  seem 
to  make  it.  We  are  told  that  the  earth  must  have 
existed  in  its  present  state  very  much  longer  than 
the  account  in  Genesis  would  lead  us  to  suppose, 
and  we  are  informed  that  there  are  grounds  for  as- 
signing a  very  great  antiquity  to  the  human  race. 
It  is  asserted  that  in  ancient  geological  formations 
there  have  been  found  the  remains  of  implements 
which  must  have  been  made  by  men,  or  bones  which 
must  have  belonged  to  human  beings ;  and  that  their 
presence  in  such  positions  proves  the  existence  here 
on  earth  of  men  long  before  the  times  of  Adam  and 


PANTHEISM  IN  ITS  APPLICATIONS.  39 

Eve.  Now  it  is  not  designed  to  discuss  these  points, 
but  simply  to  trace  the  relationship  of  particular 
views  and  opinions.  And  all  these  theories,  —  of 
the  very  great  age  of  this  globe,  in  its  present  form, 
of  the  very  remote  antiquity  of  the  human  race,  — 
these  we  hold  to  be  but  tendencies  toward  the  pan- 
theistic position  of  the  eternity  of  matter.  Men 
do  not  like  to  say  so  ;  they  would  not  admit  it ;  but 
the  appetency  is  that  way.  They  long  to  get  rid 
of  the  Mosaic  history  simply  because  it  is  the  his- 
tory of  a  creation  by  God.  Indulge  them  in  this 
desire,  permit  them  to  date  back  the  origin  of  this 
present  order  of  things,  say  sixty  thousand  years, 
and  they  will  next  insist  on  carrying  it  back  six 
hundred  thousand ;  they  will  look  farther  and  far- 
ther backward  for  its  origin  toward  the  eternity 
which  at  length  they  would  demand.  Whenever 
you  hear  these  views  expressed,  ascril)e  them  to  their 
proper  place.  To  claim  that  the  earth  and  man,  as 
now  existing,  are  of  very  great  and  vast  antiquity, 
is  hesitatingly  to  move  towards  the  assertion  that  all 
matter  and  all  substance  are  eternal.  It  is,  to  feel 
that  way,  to  try  you  whether  you  will  follow,  to  in- 
vite you  toward  the  brink  of  that  gulf.  Such  opin- 
ions are  advanced,  for  the  most  part,  by  those  who 
give  themselves  to  scientific  study,  and  neglect  or 
decline  to  hear  the  word  of  God,  by  such  as  deal 
exclusively  or  mainly  in  physical  science,  by  such  as 
hold  the  modern  forms  of  science  to  be  completed 


40  PANTHEISM  IN  ITS  APPLICATIONS. 

and  perfect,  rather  than  what  they  are,  conjectural 
shapes  which  another  century's  discoveries  and 
growth  may  revolutionize  and  wholly  change. 

And  secondly,  you  find  persons  at  this  day  who 
would  make  of  history  a  fortuitous  or  fatal  sequence 
of  events.  This  is  of  the  essence  of  Pantheism. 
Whenever  any  one  speaks  of  the  history,  whether 
of  the  world  at  large  or  of  any  particular  tribe  or 
family  or  nation,  as  if  some  finite  agents  controlled, 
some  finite  power  directed  it,  you  are  ignorant,  in- 
deed, if  you  know  not  precisely  what  this  means  and 
implies.  As,  in  the  pantheistic  scheme,  there  is  no 
place  for  a  Creator,  so  there  is  none  for  a  Governor. 
"  O  Lord,  our  Governor,  how  excellent  is  Thy  name 
in  all  the  world  !  "  This  is  the  language  of  the 
Church.  But  such  language  cannot  be  uttered  by 
philosophy.  On  the  other  hand,  you  hear  such  prop- 
ositions as  these :  —  that  history  is  but  the  result  of 
the  development  of  the  human  mind  ;  that  the  eras 
and  epochs  of  history  are  times  at  which  some  idea 
prevails  so  powerfully  as  to  rule  and  guide  the  course 
of  affairs ;  that  the  careers  of  nations  are  but  the 
steps  and  pathway  of  successive  dominant  thoughts; 
that  at  each  epoch  constitutions  and  governments, 
art  and  letters,  religion  and  morals,  are  determined 
as  to  their  quality  or  character  by  a  common  motive 
principle,  the  spirit  of  the  age  ;  that  the  develop- 
ment of  the  absolute  essence,  that  eternal  substance 
of  which  we  spoke,  is  always  taking  increasingly 


PANTHEISM  IN  ITS  APPLICATIONS.  41 

perfect  manifestations.  The  basis  of  these  and  all 
similar  statements  is  one  and  the  same, —  the  denial 
that  God  bears  any  active  and  intelligent  part  in  the 
regulation  and  direction  of  the  affairs  of  nations  or 
men.  He  who  makes  that  denial  may  perhaps  ac- 
knowledge that  a  God  exists.  But  what  and  who 
is  a  God  who  is  nowhere  efficiently,  and  who  does 
and  knows  and  sees  nothing  1  It  is  a  mere  delusion. 
If  you  separate  God  from  the  historical  course  of 
this  world,  you  thereby  play  into  the  hands  of  those 
who,  in  their  impious  theory,  would  remove  Him  not 
from  history  alone,  but  from  the  universe,  and  from 
our  very  thoughts.  The  idea  that  history  is  but  a 
fatal  sequence  of  events  is  an  idea  of  Pantheism, 
and  as  near  to  it  as  a  rib  taken  from  its  very  side. 

But  thirdly,  you  will  hear  it  often  said  that  men 
in  their  original  state  were  rude  barbarians  and 
grovelling  degraded  savages.  It  is  asserted  that 
the  first  men  went  on  all-fours ;  that  they  had  no 
intelligible  language ;  that  they  lived  on  roots ;  that 
they  were  but  a  step  above  the  beasts  of  the  field : 
then  that  they  advanced  by  degrees  to  their  present 
state;  that  they  invented  language  ;  that  they  formed 
themselves  into  society  ;  that  they  arrived  by  degrees 
at  the  possession  of  laws,  arts,  religion.  Now  what 
does  all  this  mean,  and  with  what  theory  is  it  allied  ] 
With  none  save  that  theory  of  development  which 
is  part  and  parcel  of  the  pantheistic  scheme,  and  has 
no  logical  relation  to  any  other   philosophy  under 


42  PANTHEISM  IN  ITS  APPLICATIONS. 

heaven.  When  you  hear  any  one  talk  of  a  supposed 
original  brute-like  condition  of  mankind,  —  when  you 
hear  the  assertion  that  language  is  the  invention  of 
man  and  not  the  gift  of  God  to  us,  —  when  you  hear 
of  the  successive  acquirements  of  our  race,  and  of 
their  actual  position  as  far  superior  to  any  enjoyed 
by  them  heretofore,  —  mistrust  the  speaker,  or  rather 
be  sure  that  he  too  is  anchored  fast,  though  he  per- 
chance may  not  know  it,  to  the  pantheistic  platform. 
For,  according  to  that  theory,  there  was  no  God  to 
make  man,  no  God  to  teach  him,  no  God  to  en- 
lighten him ;  therefore,  he  developed  by  degrees  to 
what  he  is  become.  And  back  of  all  this  miserable 
trifling  about  a  primitive  state  of  utter  barbarism, 
and  about  a  language  of  growls  or  grunts  slowly 
working  up  to  the  fulness  of  such  a  system  as  the 
English  tongue,  —  back  of  all  this  lie  the  less  con- 
spicuous but  not  worse  downfalls  of  the  doctrine 
that  man  was  a  brute  before  he  became  a  man,  and 
before  that  a  fish,  and  before  that  a  gluten,  and  be- 
fore that  an  infusorial  point.  It  is  all  part  and  par- 
cel of  one  and  the  same  falsehood,  that  things  are 
what  they  are,  not  because  God  made  them  so,  but 
because  the  eternal  substance  developed  blindly  into 
these  forms.  And  that  is  the  tenet  of  Pantheism. 
In  the  fourth  place,  brethren,  I  call  your  attention 
to  the  evident  vestiges  and  foot-tracks  of  this  heresy 
in  all  that  you  hear  so  often  and  so  boastfully  said 
of  the  sufficiency  of  the  human  reason  to  itself,  and 


PANTHEISM  IN  ITS  APPLICATIONS.  4-8 

of   its  power  of   independent    and    salutary  action 
apart  from  the  revelation  of  God.      If  there  he  no 
God  whose  mind  made  known  to  it  shall  constitute 
the  law  of  human  thought,  then  indeed  must  the 
reason  he  regarded  as  adequate  to  itself.     But  to 
say  that  it  is  thus  adequate  is  to  imply  that  there  is 
no  God.      All,  therefore,  that  we  hear  of  the  native 
powers  of   man,   of   the  sufficiency  of   the  human 
mind,  of  our  ahility  to  formalize  all  faith,  all  works, 
all  helief,  all  duty,  after  our  own  will,  all  that  men 
claim  as  a  kind  of  royal  prerogative  and  birthright 
in  this  behalf,  smells  of  the  system  under  discussion. 
Reflect,  again,  my  hearers,  that  under  that  system 
there  is  really  no  God  distinct  from  the  common 
substance  of  which  we  all  are  parts ;  that  the  human 
mind  is  that  substance,  or  a  portion  of  it ;  that  the 
human  consciousness  is  that  substance  recognizing 
and  comprehending    itself.      This    tenet,   although 
blasphemous,  is  in  fact  the  real  ground  and  source 
of  all  the  high  claims  in  behalf  of  the  reason  of  man  ; 
it    is  associated  with  them,  and  they  are  affiliated 
with  it.     Why  should  we  be  bidden  to  rely  upon 
)ur  native  powers  alone,  except  that  they  who  so 
exhort  us  doubt  the  existence  of  any  other  powers 
in  which  to  rest  ?     If  there  be  no  God,  the  reason 
must  be  sufficient  to  itself;  and  if  you  claim  for  it 
such  sufficiency,  you  are  practically  denying  the  need 
of  a  God.     I  point  you,  therefore,  to  all  these  state- 
ments and  to  all  these  claims  made  and  set  up  by 


44<  PANTHEISM  IN  ITS   APPLICATIONS. 

men  in  the  pride  and  naughtiness  of  their  hearts, 
and  affirm  that  however  they  may  he  smoothed  over 
or  toned  down,  or  quahfied  for  decency's  sake,  or 
through  fear  of  pushing  matters  to  extremes,  there 
is  underneath,  notwithstanding,  the  same  rank  poi- 
son. No  man  can  serve  two  masters.  If  you 
make  of  intellect  a  God,  you  dethrone  the  true  God, 
and  cast  Him  out.  There  is  but  one  choice  for  the 
mind,  —  to  submit  to  God,  or  to  curse  Him  and  die. 
And  fifthly,  the  presence  of  pantheistic  error  may 
be  detected  in  another  direction ;  as  when  any  one  is 
found  affecting  an  ignorance  of  God,  which  he  as- 
cribes to  the  extreme  difficulty  of  knowing  Him. 
This  sometimes  sounds  hke  a  sheer  affectation,  and 
it  seems  to  be  fashionable  and  is  thought  to  be  im- 
pressive, especially  among  the  poets.  But  there  is 
something  beneath.  It  is  a  solemn  trifling  with  the 
hope  of  the  world.  In  knowledge  of  God  standeth 
our  eternal  life.  In  knowledge  of  Him  and  of  His 
\yord  modern  civilization  has  been  built  up.  What 
were  man  if  he  knew  not  God  at  all  ]  And  how 
much  below  his  rightful  place  if  he  know  Him  but 
imperfectly]  Therefore,  to  say  that  there  is  any  su- 
preme difficulty  about  knowing  God,  or  learning  of 
God,  or  coming  to  Him,  is  to  imperil  the  very  bond 
of  all  our  strength,  the  very  spring  of  all  our  hopes. 
Yet  this  is  just  what  men  do:  affected  men,  con- 
ceited men,  who  stop  their  ears  to  His  voice,  and 
then  complain  that  they  can  hear  nothing;  who  turn 


PANTHEISM  IN  ITS  APPLICATIONS.  45 

their  faces  away,  and  then  morhidly  lament  their  mis- 
fortune in  not  enjoying  the  sight  of  Him.  Distrust 
all  this  fashionahle,  this  modern,  this  poetical  cant 
(for  you  find  it  full  often  in  our  nineteenth-century 
poets)  about  the  dimness  of  all  the  future  and  the 
dread  uncertainties  of  our  position,  and  the  sadness 
of  our  lot  in  being  forced  to  dwell  with  doubtfulness 
and  uncertainty  for  our  constant  companions.  Not 
half,  not  a  quarter  of  this  is  genuine.  In  a  Christian 
land  like  ours,  in  any  land  where  there  flourishes  a 
branch  of  Christ's  Church,  there  is  no  real  difficulty 
in  knowing  God.  We  all  know  Him  well  enough  for 
practical  purposes.  We  all  know  Him  well  enough 
for  our  eternal  salvation,  and  there  are  those  who 
know  Him  too  well  for  their  soul's  peace.  When- 
ever you  hear  this  disavowed,  —  whenever  you  hear 
loose,  vague  talk  about  God,  as  though  it  were  next 
to  impossible  to  satisfy  one's  self  who  He  is,  or  what 
He  is,  or  where  He  is,  how  He  exists,  how  He  has 
acted,  or  is  acting  now,  whether  He  be  or  be  not  a 
person  as  we  are  persons,  —  then  mistrust  the  words 
and  look  beneath  for  the  scales,  and  the  cloven  feet, 
and  the  slime  of  the  vast  heresy  of  the  ages.  Pan- 
theism has  for  her  office  to  obscure  all  clearness  of 
view,  to  destroy  the  power  of  lucid  thought  about 
the  Deity,  —  making  of  Him,  not  a  person,  but  an 
abstraction  ;  not  a  being,  but  an  influence  or  impres- 
sion ;  not  a  reality,  but  a  shadowy  intangibility ;  not 
a  Creator  and  Governor  distinct   from  that  world 


4^6  PANTHEISM  IN  ITS  APPLICATIONS. 

which  He  governs  and  created,  but  a  kind  of  chem- 
ical base  of  the  world ;  not  a  Lord  upon  the  throne 
of  the  universe,  but  an  all-pervading  substance,  with- 
out concentration,  intelligence,  power,  force,  or  will. 
Such  a  God  is  utterly  inconceivable,  utterly  unim- 
aginable ;  a  fleeting  phantom  to  mock  the  weary 
sight,  the  stumbling  foot,  the  empty  hand.  And  the 
loose,  discursive  speech  about  the  difficulty  of  know- 
ing Him  is  true  alone  on  the  hypothesis  that  He  is 
such  a  nonentity  as  has  been  described. 

And  sixthly,  and  finally,  you  may  rest  assured  of 
the  presence  of  pantheistic  error  in  every  case  of  de- 
nial of  objective  truth,  of  truth  apart  from  him  who 
holds  it  to  be  true.  For  there  are  those  who  tell 
us  that  all  is  true  to  him  which  any  man  thinks  to 
be  true.  This  is  to  say  that  the  truth  is  in  us,  in 
our  consciousness  and  in  our  thoughts.  And  there 
are  those  who  say  that  every  man  may  believe  just 
as  he  chooses  to  believe,  —  as  much,  as  little.  This 
is  to  say  that  there  is  nothing  which  any  of  us  ought 
to  believe  to  his  soul's  health.  Down  these  chasms 
the  truth  slides  helplessly  away,  —  for  they  are 
chasms,  and  below  are  spread  the  black,  deep  waters 
of  the  same  heresy,  the  linihus  of  the  lost,  —  for 
these  denials  of  a  truth  outside  of  us,  apart  from  us, 
independent  of  us,  are  based  upon  the  assumption 
that  all  is  one  and  the  same  substance,  and  that  all 
things  which  we  see  are  but  transient  and  temporary 
modifications  thereof.     In  face  of  such  a  principle 


PANTHEISM  IN  ITS  APPLICATIONS.  47 

no  doctrine,  no  fact,  no  article  of  faith,  could  for  one 
moment  live.  When  men  say  that  what  any  one 
thinks  to  be  true  is  true  for  him;  that  for  truth  we 
must  look  within ;  that  every  one  of  us  is,  in  his 
sphere,  the  judge  of  truth;  that  each  man's  mind 
shall  dictate  or  determine  his  belief,  and  that  each 
man's  feeling-s  do  witness  infallibly  to  his  true  condi- 
tion ;  —  when  they  say  these  things,  they  do  but  tiat- 
ter  with  their  lips  and  dissemble  in  their  double  heart. 
For  it  is  to  say,  that  there  is  no  truth  ;  nothing 
outside;  all  within.  This  is  the  pantheistic  dogma. 
Nothing  outside  this  world  ;  nothing  greater,  wiser, 
better,  nobler  than  the  human  mind  ;  no  evidence 
so  good  as  internal  evidence ;  no  test  of  use  against 
a  man's  deliberate  convictions.  And  in  such  a 
scheme  there  can  be  nothing  but  truth ;  there  can 
be  no  error  and  no  falsehood,  no  wrong,  no  evil ;  all 
is  good,  and  true,  and  right,  and  excellent;  for  all  is 
God.  I  care  not  what  schools  of  theology  this  may 
touch,  what  man's  views  it  may  impugn ;  but  let  it 
be  affirmed,  that  he  who  says  that  you  may  repose 
secure  in  any  Creed,  if  conscientious,  —  that  you 
should  rest,  not  in  outward  forms  and  agencies,  but 
on  inward  feelings  and  conviction, —  this  man  is  play- 
ing into  the  hands  of  Pantheism,  is  helping  on  the 
work  of  those  who  would  bind  you  and  give  you 
over  to  the  monster,  hand  and  foot. 

Brethren,  there  is  no  proof  that  the  earth  in  its 
present  state  has  that  high  antiquity  which  the  phi- 


48  PANTHEISM  IN  ITS  APPLICATIONS. 

losophers  claim.  And  man  was  not  at  first  a  semi- 
brute;  but  God  made  him  perfect,  and  saw  the  work 
that  it  was  very  good.  And  history  is  not  a  play 
of  chance  or  fate,  but  a  drama  conducted  by  God 
in  person.  And  God  is  not  far  off,  and  hard  to 
know,  but  close  to  us  and  easy  of  access ;  nor  hath 
He  ever  left  Himself  without  a  witness  amono-  His 
creatures.  And  the  human  mind  is  not  sufficien 
to  itself,  but  is  without  His  revelation  just  where 
the  eye  is  without  light.  And  truth  is  not  variable, 
but  constant ;  not  within  us,  but  without,  for  us  to 
make  it  ours,  by  reaching  forth  to  it  from  out  our- 
selves. And  the  Catholic  religion,  which  thus  con- 
rects  all  falsehoods,  is  the  only  teacher  under  God 
whom  we  may  safely  follow  ;  and  tlie  school  of  her- 
esy, in  which  not  merely  the  hard,  gaunt  theory  is 
taught,  but  all  its  ingenious  applications  are  made, 
that  school  is  the  council-room  of  confusion,  and  the 
entrance  of  ruin  for  the  mind  and  soul  and  heart  of 
all  those  who  abide  and  continue  therein. 


0BJECT10:^:S   TO   TtLtj   1^Aj.\ lUJ^i^inj  iniLuni.    ^y 


LECTURE  IV. 

OBJECTIONS   TO    THE    PANTHEISTIC   THEORY. 

In  the  previous  lectures  of  this  course  I  have 
endeavored,  with  what  success  yourselves  must 
judge,  to  show  the  scheme  of  Pantheism,  first,  in 
its  theoretic  form,  and  secondly,  in  its  practical  ap- 
plications. Such  a  division  of  the  suhject  was  ren- 
dered necessary  by  the  fact  that  the  system,  in  its 
unshorn  deformity,  is  to  be  found  only  in  the  works 
of  those  scientific  writers  (especially  of  the  French  * 
and  German  schools)  who  logically  carry  out  their 
principles  and  accept  and  avow  the  consequences, 
while  it  is  commonly  presented  to  us  in  the  shape 
of  dilutions  more  or  less  strong.  Thus  qualified  and 
mitigated,  however,  it  is  encountered  everywhere, — 
in  theology,  in  philosophy,  in  history,  in  poetry,  in 
the  drama,  and  in  the  trashy  literature  of  the  day. 
To  be  able  to  recognize  it  in  its  disguised  forms, 
one  must  know  it  in  its  natural  shape ;  through 
such  knowledge  only  can  the  identity  between  the 
theory  and  its  applications  be  exhibited. 

I  now  proceed,  in  continuation  of  this  subject,  to 

speak,  first,  of  the  way  in  which  the  Pantheists  en- 

*  See  Note  D. 
4 


50    OBJECTIONS   TO   THE  PANTHEISTIC  THEORY. 

deavor  to  establish  their  conclusions ;  secondly,  of 
the  character  of  their  alleged  proofs  ;  thirdly,  of  the 
objections  which  lie  against  the  whole  system  in  the 
consequences  resulting  therefrom. 

And  first,  it  is  to  be  remarked  that  the  Pantheist, 
in  endeavoring  to  establish  his  principles,  depends 
on  certain  definitions  which  he  assumes  to  be  correct, 
concerning  the  infinite  and  the  finite,  concerning  sub- 
stance and  being.  He  also  rests  upon  a  very  subtle 
system  of  the  most  abstract  notions  of  metaphysics. 
All  his  philosophy  is  built  on  these  primary  defini- 
tions. My  reference  is  chiefly  to  the  speculative 
writers  of  the  French  and  German  schools.  To 
endeavor  to  understand  the  language  of  their  sys- 
tems is  an  almost  hopeless  task,  and  yet  it  is  evident 
that  the  main  strength  of  those  systems  lies  in  this 
scientific  jargon,  and  that  they  depend  upon  it  for 
the  success  of  their  so-called  demonstrations.  But 
it  is  not  from  their  positive  methods  only  that  the 
real  position  of  these  philosophers,  relatively  to  the 
rest  of  mankind,  may  be  inferred :  nothing  can  be 
more  significant  than  the  care  with  which  they  avoid 
certain  lines  of  argument  to  which  we  should  expect 
a  school  aiming  at  wide  influence  to  resort.  For 
example,  we  never  find  one  of  these  philosophers 
appealing  to  that  grand  old  test,  the  common  sense 
of  men.  We  never  discern  in  his  writings  a  dis- 
position to  hear  and  abide  by  the  verdict  of  the  con- 
sent and  concurrence  of  mankind.     As  to  the  tra- 


OBJECTIONS  TO   THE  PANTHEISTIC  THEORY.    51 

ditional  knowledg-e  and  faith  of  our  race,  he  is  dumb. 
To  the  received  opinions,  to  the  universal  convictions 
of  his  fellow-being-s,  he  dares  not  refer.  All  these 
directions  he  avoids  with  a  sedulous  care  which  can- 
not be  mistaken,  for  he  knows  that  these  things 
are  asrainst  him.  The  voice  of  common  sense,  the 
traditions  that  have  comedown  through  all  time  and 
among  all  nations,  the  convictions  of  the  wise  and 
pious  all  over  the  world,  the  facts  of  the  existence 
of  the  visible  Church  of  Christ,  and  the  influence  of 
the  Holy  Scriptures,  — all  these  are  against  the  Pan- 
theist. He  dares  not  face  these  witnesses ;  he  can- 
not meet  them  on  common  ground.  He  invents  his 
subtle  system  of  metaphysics  as  a  necessity  of  his 
position,  because  a  special  and  peculiar  set  of  arms, 
offensive  and  defensive,  is  required  by  the  man  who 
is  to  appear  in  conflict  with  history,  and  testimony, 
and  consent,  and  experience,  and  the  judgment  and 
common  sense  of  all  our  race.  His  battle  is  against 
the  mind,  the  logic,  the  intelligence,  the  heart,  the 
soul,  of  the  universal  human  family. 

To  speak,  in  the  second  place,  though  briefly,  of 
the  character  of  these  alleged  proofs.  Already  labor- 
ing, from  the  very  first,  under  the  disadvantage  of 
contradiction  by  every  reliable  voice  to  which  an  ap- 
peal can  reasonably  be  made,  they  stand  convicted  of 
weakness  in  this  behalf,  —  that  they  are  arbitrary  in 
themselves,  and  therefore  powerless  in  result.  Each 
science  has  its  language.  But  the  science  of  Panthe- 


52    OBJECTIONS   TO   THE  PANTHEISTIC  THEORY. 

ism  is  a  mere  speculative  cloud.  It  has  its  language 
and  its  proper  terms,  and  in  them  lies  its  strength. 
Yet  no  man  need  admit  the  exactness  of  its  defini- 
tions, nor  is  it  possible  for  the  masters  of  this  science 
to  show  cause  why  the  world  should  accept  the  pecu- 
liar nomenclature  which  they  employ.  Unless  this 
be  done,  however,  the  argument  which  lives  in  those 
special  definitions  must  fiiil.  The  characteristic  lan- 
guage of  the  school  respecting  substance,  personality, 
unity,  the  finite  and  the  infinite,  matter,  spirit,  soul, 
truth,  certitude,  and  the  like,  we  Christians  may  re- 
ject ;  and  we  may  demand  that  the  terms  to  be  used 
in  all  questions  touching  the  existence  and  nature  of 
the  Ahnighty,  the  being  and  powers  of  man,  and 
similar  topics,  shall  be  such  terms  as  have  been  fa- 
miliarly known  and  used  in  the  Church,  and  may 
be  understood  of  ordinary  minds.  We  may  require, 
as  a  preliminary,  that  this  unintelligible  jargon  of 
the  Rationalists  shall  cease,  and  that,  in  subjects  em- 
inently practical,  we  shall  be  permitted  to  know  just 
what  these  teachers  mean  and  whither  they  would 
lead  us.  If  this  be  done,  the  power  of  the  system  is 
broken.  Opposed  by  common  sense,  ignoring  the 
realities  of  our  situation,  admitting  no  fact  as  his- 
toric, explaining  no  mystery,  leaving  behind  it  diffi- 
culties more  formidable  than  those  of  which  it  com- 
plained and  which  it  proposed  to  remove,  the  tongue 
of  this  philosophy  ceases,  and  the  knowledge  there- 
of vanishes  away. 


OBJECTIONS  TO  THE  PANTHEISTIC  THEORY.    58 

I  proceed  to  speak,  thirdly,  of  the  objections  to 
this  philosophy  in  respect  to  the  consequences  which 
it  involves.  And  since  this  is  by  far  the  most  impor- 
tant branch  of  the  subject,  it  is  to  its  full  treatment 
that  the  remainder  of  this  lecture  will  be  devoted. 

The  first  consequence  from  the  Pantheistic  philos- 
ophy to  which  I  shall  advert  is  this :  that,  according 
to  its  principles,  the  world  and  man  do  of  necessity 
exist,  and  that  they  are  part  of  God  Himself.  From 
eternity  has  there  been  this  so-called  universal  sub- 
stance. But  the  being"  which  is  from  eternity  is  not 
contingent  and  relative,  but  absolute  and  necessary. 
The  world,  however,  is  but  that  substance  realized 
in  certain  visible  forms,  and  man  is  that  substance 
arrived  at  its  highest  manifestation  thus  far ;  and 
therefore  the  world  and  man  have,  as  to  their  sub- 
stance, a  necessary  existence.  Again,  that  substance, 
in  its  entirety,  is  God,  and  the  world  and  man  are 
parts  of  that  substance,  and  therefore  the  world  and 
man  do  not  merely  exist  of  necessity,  but  the  world 
and  man  are  parts  of  God.  As  to  this  conclusion, 
Pantheism  hesitates  not  to  avow  it ;  nay,  it  glories 
in  it  as  its  most  valuable  discovery  ;  and  that  blas- 
phemous idea,  at  which  the  Christian  shudders,  is 
the  first  of  the  inestimable  boons  bestowed  by  this 
hifidel  philosophy  on  mankind. 

But,  secondly,  it  follows  not  less  clearly,  from  the 
principles  now  under  consideration,  that  God  is  ab- 
solutely dependent  on  the  world,  and  absolutely  de- 


54f    OBJECTIONS   TO   THE  PANTHEISTIC  THEORY. 

pendent  upon  man.  We  have  been  trained  in  the 
Church  to  think  of  God  as  the  sovereign  Lord  of 
all ;  but  the  God  of  Pantheism  is  weak,  and  speech- 
less, and  unconscious,  and  powerless,  without  the 
universe  and  without  us.  For  consider,  brethren, 
that,  according  to  this  philosophy,  the  eternal  sub- 
stance has  in  itself  no  shape,  no  mind,  no  will,  no 
sight,  no  consciousness ;  it  attains  to  these  in  devel- 
oping upward,  and  in  taking  the  successive  forms  of 
the  universe.  Until  it  thundered,  God  had  no  voice. 
Until  there  were  mountains  and  hills,  and  suns  and 
moons  and  stars,  God  had  no  definite  life.  Until 
there  were  planetary  orbits,  God  had  no  orderly  mo- 
tion. Until  there  were  brutes,  God  had  no  instincts, 
no  desires,  no  feeling.  Until  there  were  men,  God 
had  no  consciousness,  no  perception  of  Himself,  no 
will,  no  thought.  Thus  He  depends  on  us.  It  is 
He  who  lives  in  us,  rather  than  we  in  Him.  With- 
out the  universe,  without  what  we  mistakingly  call 
His  works.  He  is  quite  imperfect  and  incomplete ; 
for  it  is  only  through  the  universe  that  this  poor, 
blind,  unformed,  anomalous  being  can  express  itself 
or  assert  itself.  This  conclusion  inevitably  follows 
from  the  principles  of  the  system  ;  and  this  degraded 
and  emasculted  conception  is  that  which  Panthe- 
ism, with  ghastly  leer,  offers  us  as  a  substitute  for 
the  Father,  the  Redeemer,  the  Governor,  in  whom 
thus  far  the  world  has  trusted  itself,  and  on  whom 
we  suppose  that  we  depend. 


OBJECTIONS  TO   THE  PANTHEISTIC  THEORY.    55 

And  thirdly,  it  is  a  consequence  of  this  philosophic 
theory  that  it  obliterates  those  distinctions  on  the 
existence  and  realization  of  which  all  social,  moral, 
and  intellectual  life  and  progress  depend.  There  is, 
according  to  the  Pantheistic  tenet,  no  distinction  at 
all  between  the  finite  and  the  infinite,  all  things  that 
we  see  and  perceive  and  know  being  but  parts  of 
the  one  infinite  and  universal  substance.  But  to 
maintain  this  principle,  to  say,  as  they  do  whose 
views  we  are  now  examining,  that  the  finite  has  no 
true  and  separate  existence  of  its  own  apart  from 
the  infinite,  is  to  kill  the  finite  by  this  tremendous, 
this  fcital  juxtaposition.  It  results  from  this  idea,  (to 
look  to  that  which  most  nearly  concerns  ourselves,) 
that  men  have  no  real  existence  of  their  own,  that  we 
are  but  phantoms,  that  our  acts  are  but  imaginary, 
that  our  lives  (as  we  call  them) are  but  dreams;  for 
we  are  parts  or  fragments  of  that  ever-developing 
infinite,  that  ever-progressing  infinite,  which  alone 
has  any  and  all  reality.  And  thus,  in  like  manner, 
the  Pantheistic  theory  destroys  effectually  all  distinc- 
tion between  the  human  reason  and  the  divine,  all 
distinction  between  the  life  of  creatures  and  the  life 
of  God.  All  boundary  lines  are  swept  away,  all  dif- 
ferences disappear,  all  life,  all  thought,  all  reason,  all 
existence,  are  struck  and  heaped  and  massed  together 
in  one  monstrous  lump,  one  inconceivable  aggre- 
gate. There  is  a  complete  identification,  or,  which  is 
the  same  thing,  there  remains  but  one  appalling  chaos. 


56    OBJECTIONS  TO   THE  PANTHEISTIC  THEORY. 

And  fourthly,  you  perceive,  brethren,  that  in  this 
system  the  Personal  God  disappears  utterly  from 
view.  That  grand  and  beneficent  figure,  the  form 
of  the  Father  of  all,  is  dethroned.  As  we  compre- 
hend the  sacred  term,  there  is  left  no  God.  A  sub- 
stance, impersonal,  there  is;  but  we  cannot  imagine 
that  unintelligible,  unreasoning,  unthinking,  unloving 
state  of  impotence  as  our  Father,  our  Creator,  our 
Redeemer,  our  Sanctifier,  our  Friend.  The  God  in 
whom  we  have  believed  is  gone.  In  the  following 
lecture  of  this  course  it  is  proposed  to  state,  (and 
how  refreshing  will  be  the  task  after  this  wading 
through  the  Pantheistic  slough !)  the  full,  the  true, 
the  dear,  the  blessed  conception  of  the  Almighty 
which  we  have  received  in  the  Church  and  find  in 
the  sacred  Scriptures.  Let  it  be  sufficient  here  to 
remark  that  such  a  conception,  in  connection  with 
the  system  whose  tenets  are  an  identity  of  substance 
throughout  the  universe  and  a  principle  of  sponta- 
neous development  as  the  only  law  of  life  and  prog- 
ress, is  merely  and  absolutely  impossible.  The  God 
of  Pantheism  is  not  a  person,  exists  not  person- 
ally, has  no  personal  attributes ;  it  is  merely  a  kind 
of  substratum  on  which  everything  is  founded,  a 
kind  of  material  out  of  which  everything  is  built, 
a  kind  of  great  sum  total  of  all  things,  an  enormous 
vortex  in  which  its  own  concretions  whirl  round  and 
round  forever.  Oh,  what  a  black  and  damnable  out- 
rage is  that  which  Pantheism  attempts  to  perpetrate ! 


OBJECTIONS  TO   THE  PANTHEISTIC  THEORY.    5J 

It  would  rob  the  creation  of  its  Maker,  the  world  of 
its  Governor,  time  of  its  Providential  Arbiter,  man 
of  his  Father  and  Friend  !  What  greater  crime  than 
to  try  this  gigantic  fraud  and  to  leave  us  nothing  in 
His  place  1 

Ah,  brethren,  those  last  words  were  not  correct. 
Pantheism   does  not  leave   us  destitute.      It  takes 
away  God,  but  it  does  not  leave  His  place  empty. 
Had  it  done  so,  our  charge  against  it  were  not  so 
heavy  and  the  wrong  were  less ;  for  that  is  what 
Atheism  does,  and  therefore  Atheism  is  less  to  be 
feared.    For  Atheism,  denying  that  there  is  any  God, 
and  not  undertaking  to  fill  the  place  which  it  has 
thus  proclaimed  to  be  vacant,  leaves  behind  it  a  void, 
the  void  of  that  negation,  a  void  which  cries  out  to 
be  filled,  which  calls  to  its  object,  which  craves  in- 
cessantly in  the  torments  of  hungry  despair.     The 
void  which  Atheism  thus  makes  in  the  universe  pro- 
tests against  the  process  by  which  it  was  formed ;  it 
cries  aloud ;  accuses  the  folly  of  the  man  who  hath 
said  there  is  no    God;   it  denies  the  very  denial, 
and  leaves  the  victim  no  refuge  but  in  an  utter  bru- 
talization,  in  a  completed  degradation  from  which 
he  must  escape,  and  from  which  he  cannot  escape 
save  by  coming  back  to  faith.      But  Pantheism  es- 
chews that  error.     Pantheism  is  the  last  device  of 
the  devil,  and  by  far  the  subtlest.     Atheism  is  sim- 
ple  and  blunt;   but  Pantheism  is   crafty  and  sly. 
Atheism  is  honest  in  its  way,  and  by  its  very  hon- 
esty defeats  its  end.     But  Pantheism  profits  by  ob- 


58    OBJECTIONS  TO  THE  PANTHEISTIC  THEORY. 

servation  of  the  error  of  its  predecessor.  It  strikes 
out  God  from  the  universe ;  hut  it  leaves  no  void, — 
no  void  to  ache  and  protest  and  demand  mercy.  It 
fills  the  void  with  a  calculating  coolness ;  it  fills  it  by- 
deifying  the  world  and  man. 

Tliis  is  our  fifth  allegation  against  the  system : 
that  it  confounds  God  and  the  universe  in  such  a 
way  as  to  make  of  them  but  one.  That  it  con- 
founds God  and  man,  the  divine  nature  and  the 
human,  in  such  wise  as  to  identify  them.  It  de- 
thrones God,  but  not  so  as  to  leave  His  throne 
empty.  It  dethrones  God,  but  it  sets  up  man  in 
His  place.  "  He,  as  God,  sitteth  in  the  temple  of 
God,  showing  himself  that  he  is  God."  It  trans- 
ports the  divine  personality  into  man ;  it  affirms 
that  in  man  God  hath  consciousness,  affection,  will, 
personal  existence.  It  subjects  and  satisfies  the  idea 
of  the  greatness,  the  majesty,  the  worthiness  of  man  ; 
it  makes  of  him  the  real,  the  only  deity  :  and  thus 
the  void  is  filled  by  the  sovereign  pride,  the  end- 
less ambition,  the  supreme  self-confidence  of  the 
human  heart.  This  thing  is  worse  by  far  than 
aught  that  Atheism  ever  attempted.  It  is  crafty,  it 
is  malignant,  it  is  immense  in  audacity;  and  yet  it 
is  literally  the  very  thing  which  the  Pantheists  have 
done,  the  last  and  highest  conclusion  of  their  ap- 
proved writers,  in  whose  printed  works  may  these 
atrocious  blasphemies  be  found,  line  upon  line,  and 
statement  upon  statement,  until  the  very  hairs  of  our 
head  should  stand  on  end  as  we  read. 


OBJECTIONS  TO  THE  PANTHEISTIC  THEORY.   59 

Think  then,  brethren,  in  the  sixth  place,  of  the 
bearings  of  this  view  on  certain  questions  vital  to 
us  as  a  race.     There  follows,  as  a  consequence,  the 
reduction  of  certainty  to  uncertainty  throughout  the 
province  of  thought ;  the  obliteration  of  all  distinc- 
tion betvveen  good  and  evil,  between  right  and  wrong, 
between  virtue  and  vice,  in  the  sphere  of  morality  ; 
for  accordinof  to  the  Pantheistic  scheme  there  is  no 
divine  mind,  no  divine  thought,  until  the  infinite  and 
universal  substance  has  developed  up  to  man.      In 
man,  therefore,  that  substance   first  has  conscious- 
ness ;  in  man  that  substance  first  thinks.     But  that 
substance  is  God ;  therefore  the  thought  of  man  is 
the  thought  of  God,  the  mind  of  man  the  mind  of 
God,  the  speech,  the  voice  of  man,  are  the  speech 
and  voice  of  God.     Now  what  does  all  this  mean  % 
This,  and  no  less,  —  that  all  the  thoughts  of  any  in- 
dividual mind  are  divine  thoughts ;  that  all  the  im- 
aginings, the  opinions,  the  views  of  any  mind,  of 
every  mind,  are  divine ;  that  every  wish  of  your 
heart,  that  every  appetite  of  your  soul,  that  every 
consideration  of    your  intelligent  understanding  are 
together  and  alike  divine.     But,  you  will  say,  men 
do  not  think  alike,  do  not  judge  alike,  do  not  desire 
alike.      It  is  so.      And  thus  all  ideas  of  any  fixed 
and  settled  permanent  quality  in  thought  are  lost. 
It  follows  that  there  can  be  no  such  thing  as  abso- 
lute and  immutable  truth :   all  truth  is  mobile  and 
progressive ;  all  thoughts  are  right  and  true  in  their 


60    OBJECTIONS  TO   THE  PANTHEISTIC  THEORY. 

way.  No  thought  of  any  human  mind  can  be 
wrong  :  it  may  be  incomplete,  but  that  is  all ;  and 
as  the  idea  of  an  absolute  and  unchanging  truth  in- 
dependent of  our  minds  is  thus  removed,  so  there 
doth  perish  in  like  manner  to  its  merest  vestiges  the 
idea  of  a  moral  law,  and  of  a  distinction  between 
right  and  wrong,  good  and  evil,  vice  and  virtue. 
For  if  man  be  God  thinking  and  acting,  then,  as 
all  man's  thoughts  are  divine,  so  must  be  his  acts : 
pride,  pleasure,  passion,  cruelty,  ambition,  lust,  are 
but  the  necessary  development  of  moral  tendencies 
in  the  orio-inal  substance.  That  substance,  thouofh 
it  have  no  personality,  is  supposed  to  have  and  to 
hold  all  possible,  all  conceivable  tendencies  within 
itself,  and  these  are  developed  and  evolved  in  human 
thought,  in  human  desire.  All  our  thoughts  are 
divine  thoughts,  all  our  desires  are  divine  desires. 
This  is  what  the  New  England  transcendentalists 
have  meant  all  along,  in  using  the  pernicious  lan- 
guage, that  what  we  call  error  is  only  incomplete 
truth,  and  that  what  we  call  evil  is  only  incomplete 
good, — which  means,  at  bottom,  that  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  an  absolute  good  and  evil,  an  absolute  right 
and  wrong.  In  New  England  they  are  cautious 
what  they  say  and  how  they  express  themselves  ;  but 
the  Pantheists  abroad  are  more  straightforward. 
They  stick  not  at  the  last  conclusion,  from  the  mere 
expression  of  which  one  shrinks  appalled  ;  but  it 
must  be  said,  it  shall  be  said,  to  let  you  look  for  once 


OBJECTIONS   TO  THE  PANTHEISTIC  THEORY.   61 

over  the  edge  and  far  down  into  the  deep,  —  they 
liave  affirmed  that  the  development  of  man  is  the  de- 
velopment of  God  too  ;  that  as  the  primal  suhstance 
is  advancing-  it  is  God  who  advances ;  that  He,  far 
from  heing  unchangeable,  is  always  improving  and 
going  forward  to  what  He  was  not  before ;  *  that 
we  cannot  conjecture  what  God  may  become  ;  that 
whatsoever  appears  to  be  evil  is  only  in  appearance 
evil,  but,  in  reality,  imperfect  good  ;  that  whatever 
appears  to  be  error  is  not  really  error,  but  only  im- 
perfect truth;  and  since  all,  in  thought  or  act, 
which  we  call  error,  evil,  vice,  is  but  part  of  the  one 
grand  and  perpetual  progression  and  development, 
therefore  that  God  is  not  merely  good,  truth,  and 
virtue,  but  that  He  is  error,  vice,  and  evil !  So  wrote 
a  pantheistic  philosopher  in  France;  f  and  when  he 
penned  those  words  and  spoke  them  abroad,  if  there 
be  ears  and  eyes  in  hell  to  hear  and  see,  that  place 
must  have  rung  with  applause,  and  shouts  of  ap- 
proval must  have  stormed  round  all  the  sides  of 
the  infernal  pit. 

And,  brethren,  I  will  detain  you  with  but  one 
more  of  these  pictured  consequences  of  this  message 
and  burden  of  woe  and  death.  It  is  the  pantheistic 
view  of  history, — of  the  history  of  the  ages  and  of 
nations  and  of  men.  History,  according  to  these 
writers,  is  not  ordered  by  God ;    nations  are  not 

*  See  Note  E. 

f  Proudhon  :  SysCeme  des  Contradictions  JEconomiques. 


62    OBJECTIONS  TO  THE  PANTHEISTIC  THEORY. 

ruled  by  God ;  individual  life  is  not  overlooked  by 
God  :  but  history  is  merely  the  continued  develop- 
ment of  humanity.  It  is  supposed  by  this  philoso- 
phy to  be  divided  into  epochs.  Each  of  those  epochs 
is  reg-arded  as  a  time  of  the  domination  of  some 
one  element  of  the  mind.  Nations  are  the  repre- 
resentatives  of  ideas,  and  it  is  the  mission  of  each 
nation  to  manifest  the  special  idea  with  which  its 
existence  is  allied ;  therefore  the  part  which  each 
nation  is  to  play  is  fixed  by  a  prior  necessity,  by  an 
absolute  fate.  The  idea  to  be  represented  by  each  na- 
tion has  connection  with  the  part  of  the  globe  which 
the  nation  occupies,  —  with  climate,  physical  cir- 
cumstances, temperature,  —  with  commercial  advan- 
tages, with  natural  resources,  with  the  productions 
of  the  soil.  The  pantheistic  Philosophy  supposes 
two  things  (in  its  applications  to  the  history  of  the 
world):  first,  a  law  of  progress  which  is  not  the  will 
of  God,  but  an  inflexible  and  inevitable  necessity  of 
sequence ;  and  secondly,  a  necessary  and  absolute 
inspiration  in  humanity.  The  ideas  of  which  we 
have  spoken  are  all,  in  their  way,  divine  ;  divine,  but 
incomplete.  They  are  developed  one  by  one.  Each, 
being  but  a  partial  vievv  of  truth,  must,  in  its  turn, 
yield  and  disappear.  History  is  the  record  of  these 
mutations  and  transitions,  as  embodied  in  the  nations 
of  the  earth  ;  but  at  all  times  and  in  every  age,  con- 
stitutions, governments,  arts,  sciences,  religion,  have 
but  one  common  root, "  the  spirit  of  the  age."    There 


I 


OBJECTIONS  TO  THE  PANTHEISTIC  THEORY.    QS 

can  be  no  such  thing  as  national  crimes,  as  national 
injustice,  as  national  wrong.  The  whole  develop- 
ment is  good.  Through  war,  rebellion,  revolution, 
—  through  oppression  and  tyranny  and  misgovern- 
nient,  —  through  empire,  kingdom,  democracy,  —  it 
is  all  good,  it  is  all  well.  Call  nothing  a  crime  if  it 
accords  with  the  spirit  of  the  age.  Count  nothing 
a  virtue  if  it  departs  from  the  spirit  of  the  age. 
Away  with  the  unmeaning  terms  of  law,  order,  jus- 
tice, liberty,  right,  wrong,  national  honor  and  glory, 
national  shame  and  reproach.  These  are  but  empty 
names ;  for  all  is  but  one  progression,  one  develop- 
ment of  the  infinite  substance,  and  the  shadow  which 
you  call  a  nation  is  as  hollow  as  the  spectre  which 
you  call  a  hero,  a  patriot,  a  traitor,  a  demi-god.  Na- 
tions represent  ideas ;  and  when  the  idea  has  been 
expressed,  the  part  of  the  nation  is  played.  And 
great  men  are  the  priests  and  missionaries  of  ideas, 
and  their  careers  are  valuable  for  study  only  in  that 
respect.  But  all  moral  distinctions,  whether  as  to 
the  nation's  course  or  the  individual's  character,  are 
futile  and  vain.  It  is  but  the  march  of  a  great 
spirit,  —  the  spirit  of  the  age. 

Here  let  us  pause  and  draw  a  long  breath  of  re- 
lief, and  stop ;  for  the  work  which  was  proposed  is 
done  so  far  as  its  first  object  extends.  Enough  has 
been  said  of  this  dreadful  heresy.  Hereafter  we 
shall  be  refreshed  by  the  consolations  of  the  Gospel, 
and  by  the  blessed  message  concerning  the  "  One 


64    OBJECTIONS  TO   THE  PANTHEISTIC  THEORY. 

God  and  Father  of  all,"  the  "  One  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,"  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  Lord  and  the  Life- 
giver,  whom  we  know  in  the  peaceful  ways  of  the 
faith.  Referring,  therefore,  to  the  next  evening  the 
examination  of  the  truth,  let  us,  finally,  turn  the  fa- 
tal page  of  the  Philosophy  of  this  world  and  leave 
its  sentences  to  their  proper  dust  and  darkness,  with 
thanksgiving  unto  Him  who  hath  dehvered  us  and 
the  human  race  out  of  the  power  of  that  darkness, 
and  hath  translated  us  into  the  kingdom  of  His  dear 
Son. 


LECTURE  V. 

THE    CHKISTIAN    IDEA    OF  ALMIGHTY  GOD. 

The  time  has  arrived  at  which  the  character  of 
these  lectures  must  be  changed,  and  none  can  be  so 
glad  of  this  as  he  who  has  undertaken  to  prepare 
them.  It  might  indeed  appear  as  though  some  apol- 
ogy were  due  for  having  led  you  so  far  and  so  long 
in  the  paths  of  an  heretical  labyrinth,  perhaps  more 
cunningly  contrived  than  any  other  that  Satan  ever 
made  to  ensnare  and  destroy  the  human  soul.  But 
still  it  was  necessary  to  show  the  disease  in  full ; 
to  probe  the  wound  far  down ;  to  trace,  as  we  have 
done,  the  whole  pantheistic  malady,  first  in  its  real 
nature,  and  then  in  some  of  its  more  evident  symp- 
toms ;  to  follow  it  out  to  its  consequences ;  and  to 
bring  to  the  light  its  last  and  ruinous  results.  But 
that  portion  of  our  work  is  done.  The  pantheistic 
conception  of  God  has  been  distinctly  presented  ; 
that  parody  of  truth,  that  destroyer  of  our  hope, 
that  contradiction  of  every  positive  statement,  of 
every  assured  conviction,  has  been  laid  before  you 
in  the  immobility  of  its  fatalism,  in  the  rigidness  of 
its  monotonous  despair.  From  that  dark  specimen 
of  intellectual  aberration  may  we  now  right  gladly 
6 


66    THE   CHRISTIAN  IDEA    OF  ALMIGHTY  GOD. 

turn,  betaking  us  to  our  home  in  the  Church  of  God, 
reading  in  her  sacred  books  the  word  of  truth,  and 
contrasting  the  Ahnighty  as  He  really  is  with  this 
void  and  irrational  phantom  to  which  a  false  philos- 
ophy has  dared  to  apply  His  sacred  name. 

"  /  believe  in  one  God^  the  Father  Almighty^ 
Maker  of  heaven  and  earth,  and  of  all  things  visi- 
ble and  invisible.''  In  this  sublime  affirmation  does 
the  Church  begin  to  teach  us  what  to  think  of  the 
Lord  Most  High. 

When  the  Church  thus  speaks  to  us  of  Almighty 
God,  she  speaks  :  — 

First,  of  One  who  hath  a  proper  personal  exist- 
ence. 

Secondly,  of  One  who  is  distinct  from  the  works 
of  His  hands. 

Thirdly,  of  One  who  is  most  closely  connected 
with  the  world. 

And  fourthly,  of  One  who  cannot  vary  or  change. 

These  are  her  declarations  as  against  the  panthe- 
istic scheme ;  and  it  will  be  the  object  of  this  lecture 
to  develop  each  of  these  statements  in  order,  and  to 
show,  as  far  as  the  limited  time  will  allow,  what  each 
one  of  them  implies. 

And  first,  Almighty  God  is  one  who  hath,  eter- 
nally and  essentially,  a  full,  a  real,  a  proper  personal 
existence.  You  all  know,  brethren,  though  some 
of  you  might  be  at  a  loss  to  define  in  scientific  mode, 
what  is  meant  by  a  person.     You  all  know  what  is 


THE   CHRISTIAN  IDEA   OF  ALMIGHTY  GOD.     6J 

intended  when  we  speak  of  persons  as  contradistin- 
guished from  things.  You  all  know  that  a  stone 
or  a  tree  is  not  a  person  ;  and  that  a  man  or  a  wom- 
an or  a  child  is.  Now,  whatever  you  understand 
to  be  expressed,  or  whatever  plain,  simple-minded 
folk  commonly  understand  to  be  expressed,  by  the 
term  "  a  personal  existence,"  such  an  existence  has 
Almighty  God.  Only  that  in  Him  personality 
must  have  a  perfection  which  it  never  could  have  in 
creatures ;  because  He  is  every  way  so  incomparably 
greater'  and  better  than  they.  Your  dictionaries 
will  tell  you,  if  you  refer  to  them,  that  personality 
is  constituted  by  certain  capacities,  and  particularly 
by  the  power  of  conscious  thought.  A  thinking,  in- 
telligent being;  a  being  who  can  contrive  and  direct; 
who  acts  knowingly  and  understandingly ;  —  that  is 
a  person.  These  brief,  popular  definitions  are  suf- 
ficient for  our  purpose,  without  entering  into  the 
profounder  explanations  which  theology  and  phi- 
losophy afford.  But  observe,  that  if  to  think,  to 
perceive,  to  have  intelligence,  to  enjoy  and  use  the 
power  of  conscious  thought,  —  if  this  be  to  have 
personality,  —  then  when  we  say  that  Almighty  God 
is  a  person,  we  mean  that  He  is  one  who  thinks  and 
knows  and  perceives,  not  merely  as  we  do,  but  far 
more  perfectly  in  every  respect ;  who  has  conscious- 
ness, but  a  consciousness  so  full  that  ours  compared 
to  His  is  less  than  the  vague  perception  of  infancy 
as  compared  to  the  luminous  vision  of  manhood  ; 


68      THE   CHRISTIAN  IDEA    OF  ALMIGHTY  GOD. 

who  thinks,  but  with  a  power  and  range  and  scope 
of  thought  so  great  that  our  thoughts  are,  in  com- 
parison to  His,  what  folly  is  to  wisdom  ;  who  has, 
forever  and  essentially,  every  personal  quality  and 
attribute  which  we  can  trace  in  ourselves,  and  by 
which  we  establish  our  difference  from  mere  inani- 
mate things,  but  in  infinite  perfection.  Personality 
has  many  degrees.  The  lower  a  creature  may  be, 
or  the  higher,  in  the  scale  of  life,  the  narrower,  or 
the  fuller  will  be  the  attribute  in  question.  A  stone, 
a  tree,  a  hill,  a  river,  the  clouds,  the  elements,  the 
mechanical  and  chemical  forces,  —  these  are  in  no 
sense  personal  beings.  But  all  animals  have  per- 
sonality; all  that  have  the  power  of  motion,  together 
with  a  will ;  all  that  are  conscious  of  pleasure,  of 
pain,  of  want ;  all  that  have  a  logical  faculty :  all 
these  are  persons.  Above  the  rest  stands  man,  — 
above  and  far  beyond  the  rest  in  this  endowment. 
But  God  is  greater  still.  In  Him  this  quality  of 
personal  existence  is  found  in  final  and  supreme  per- 
fection. Settle  it  in  your  minds  what  you  will  un- 
derstand by  the  term,  and  then  add  to  it  an  infinity 
of  excellence :  God  is  all  that  you  have  thought  of, 
and  infinitely  more. 

And,  secondly.  Almighty  God,  as  Christianity  pro- 
claims Him,  is  one  who  is  distinct  from  all  the  works 
of  His  hands.  In  His  substance  He  is  eternal;  and 
there  is  no  eternal  substance  besides.  And  not  at 
any  time,  or  in  any  manner,  hath  aught  of  that  di- 


THE   CHRISTIAN  IDEA   OF  ALMIGHTY  GOD.     69 

vine  and  eternal  substance  been  communicated  to 
any  creature.  It  cannot  be  shared  with  creatures. 
It  cannot  be  parted  among  creatures.  It  cannot 
flow  away  into  works  or  forms.  It  is  the  indivisi- 
ble, the  inseparable,  the  essential  nature  and  sub- 
stance of  Almighty  God.  He  cannot  be  divided, 
nor  cut  up  into  parts,  nor  transformed,  now  into 
one  shape,  and  anon  into  another ;  for  He  is  from 
eternity  to  eternity  the  same.  He  made  all  things. 
But  He  made  nothing  out  of  His  own  substance  as 
out  of  a  material ;  to  assert  that  would  be  sheer 
blasphemy.  He  made,  at  first,  and  by  His  omnipo- 
tent word  brought  into  being,  a  material  which  had 
no  existence  before ;  this  He  created  before  aught 
else,  and  of  this  He  made  and  framed  the  worlds. 
But  that  substance,  that  building-material,  was  not 
Himself.  It  was  brought  into  being  in  time,  by 
Him  who  is  eternal.  It  was  not,  in  any  wise,  until 
He  caused  it  to  be.  And  thus  the  universe,  which 
was  made  of  material  not  previously  existing,  is 
infinitely  distinct  from  God.  No  part  of  His  sub- 
stance hath  ever  passed  over,  or  flowed  into,  or  be- 
come amalgamated  with  the  world,  or  with  any  por- 
tion thereof.  There  is  not,  as  Pantheism  says,  one 
universal  substance.  The  substance  of  things  creat- 
ed is  finite,  limited,  temporary,  contingent,  variable ; 
the  infinite  and  eternal  substance  is,  in  one  word, 
God.  There  it  is  that  Pantheism  and  Christianity 
part.     The  philosophic  system  confounds  God  and 


70     THE    CHRISTIAN  IDEA   OF  ALMIGHTY  GOD. 

nature.     The  holy  faith  divides  them  by  the  differ- 
ence of  infinity.* 

The  old  philosophers  agreed  not  together  as  to  the 
manner  in  which  God  and  the  world  were  one.  It 
will  repay  us  to  consider,  in  passing,  their  wild  the- 
ories; for  the  statement  of  those  theories  will  bring 
more  clearly  to  light  the  Catholic  faith.  They  all 
held  the  view  that  God  and  the  world  were  of 
one  and  the  same  substance  ;  but  they  had  four 
different  forms  of  the  common  theory,  and  they  used 
the  words  generation,  emanation,  limitation,  and  ani- 
mation, as  descriptive  terms  to  mark  the  different 
shades  of  their  thoughts.  Some  of  them  said  that 
God  made  the  world  out  of  His  own  substance,  as  the 
parent  begets  the  child  of  his  own  blood ;  and  this 
was  the  theory  of  generation.  Others  again  sup- 
posed that  all  the  creation  has  come  forth  from  God, 
just  as  light  from  the  sun,  or  heat  from  flame,  or 
vapor  from  water  ;  and  this  was  the  theory  of  em- 
anation. A  third  class  considered  that  visible  ob- 
jects are  but  a  modification,  or  a  series  of  modifica- 
tions, of  a  substance  which  never  changes ;  and  they 
held  that  the  universe  is  made  of  God,  just  as  seas, 
gulfs,  bays,  and  straits  are  formed  of  the  same  vast 
ocean,  in  the  indentations  of  enclosing  shores ;  and 
this  was  the  theory  of  limitation.  And,  finally, 
there  were  those  who  thought  that  God  was  inside 
of  the  universe  and  mixed  up  with  it,  a  kind  of 
*  See  Note  F. 


THE   CHRISTIAN  IDEA   OF  ALMIGHTY  GOD.     'Jl 

soul,  making  everything  alive  and  keeping  it  fresh 
and  sound,  as  the  soul  preserves  the  body  in  man ; 
and  this  was  the  theory  of  animation. 

But  all  these  views  are  false  together,  for  one  and 
the  same  falsehood  lies  in  them  all,  and  back  of  them 
all,  —  that  falsehood  about  the  identity  of  substance.* 
Which  falsehood  is  met  in  the  statement  of  the 
Catholic  faith,  that  God  and  the  works  of  God  are 
infinitely  distinct.  They  are  not  the  same.  He  is 
not  a  part  of  the  universe  ;  nor  is  the  universe  a 
part  of  Him.  He  made  all  things ;  but  that  where- 
with He  wrought,  and  whereof  He  made  them,  was 
not  before :  it  was  created ;  it  was  not  eternal. 
None  is  eternal  but  He ;  and  no  substance  is  eternal 
but  His.  And  since  the  world  is  not  eternal,  there- 
fore it  was  not  of  His  substance  that  the  world  was 
made. 

But  in  our  holy  religion,  beloved  brethren,  there 
is  nothing  one-sided,  nothing  incomplete.  The  mind 
of  the  Church,  as  shown  in  her  Creed  and  confes- 
sions, is  large  and  wide  as  the  mind  of  the  Spirit 
and  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  And,  therefore,  while  we 
are  taught  that  Almighty  God  is  infinitely  distinct 
from  the  universe,  we  must  at  the  same  time  hold 
fast  the  truth  that  He  is  most  closely,  most  inti- 
mately connected  with  it.  For  these  articles  of  our 
faith  do  act  towards  each  other  unto  compensation  ; 
either  would  be  unsatisfying  without  the  other,  while 
*  See  Note  G. 


7^     TEE   CHRISTIAN  IDEA   OF  ALMIGHTY  GOD. 

both  together  leave  nothing  to  be  desired.  Almighty 
God  is  not  distant  from  that  world  which  He  has 
been  pleased  to  call  into  being  ;  on  the  contrary,  He 
is  exceeding  near.  Nowhere  is  He  the  same  as  the 
world ;  yet  nowhere  is  He  absent  from  it.  These 
two  are  essential  truths.  There  can  be  no  religion, 
in  the  proper  sense  of  the  term,  where  they  are  not 
confessed.  His  entire  distinction  from  the  universe, 
and  His  closest  union  with  it,  —  of  these  two  points 
must  men  be  convinced,  as  indispensable  conditions 
to  true  belief  and  healthful  thought. 

But  how  shall  we  harmonize  statements  which 
appear  to  conflict'?  By  referring  one  of  them  to 
the  divine  substance,  and  the  other  to  the  divine  per- 
sonality. As  to  His  nature.  Almighty  God  is  in- 
finitely distinct  from  the  works  of  His  hands;  but  as 
to  His  personal  attributes.  He  is  inseparably  united 
to  them.  In  His  power,  in  His  vision,  in  His  will, 
in  His  thought,  in  His  sympathies,  in  His  love, 
He  is  nowhere  far  off,  he  is  never  absent.  No  oc- 
currence can  take  place  without  His  knowledge.  No 
creature  can  exist  but  by  His  command.  No  point 
in  all  the  universe  can,  though  but  for  an  instant,  be 
hidden  from  His  sight.  He  knows  all.  He  sees  all, 
He  thinks  of  all.  He  feels  for  all.  He  loves  all.  He 
is  everywhere,  as  to  His  thought.  His  power,  His 
goodness.  And  yet,  nowhere  is  there  the  least  ap- 
proach to  confusion  or  commingling  of  substance. 
These  are  the  two  grand  truths  on  which  our  whole 


THE   CHRISTIAN  IDEA  OF  ALMIGHTY  GOD.      JS 

religion  is  built,  and  in  which  all  our  hopes  reside. 
You  cannot  deny  either  without  risking  the  loss  of 
all  that  we  have  most  precious.  For  to  deny  the 
former,  and  to  say  that  God  and  the  universe  are 
not  absolutely  distinct,  as  to  essence  and  substance, 
is  to  admit  the  pantheistic  tenet  of  unity  of  sub- 
stance, with  all  the  woe,  and  all  the  horror,  and  all 
the  hopelessness  which  Ave  have  seen  to  result  from 
that  monstrous  assumption.  While,  on  the  other 
hand,  to  deny  the  second  article  of  the  faith,  and  to 
say  that  God  and  the  world  are  not  most  intimately 
connected,  is  to  reject  the  sweet  truth  that  we  have 
a  Father  in  heaven,  and  the  consolatory  assurance 
that  a  wise  and  thoughtful  Providence  overrules  the 
course  of  affairs ;  it  is  to  separate  God  from  His 
creation  and  from  man  ;  it  is  to  suppose  in  Him  a 
being  without  sympathy  and  without  care  ;  to  regard 
the  world  as  a  system  blindly  led  along  by  f^ite  or 
chance  or  unimpassioned  law  ;  to  consider  the  human 
race  as  beings  without  a  father,  a  governor,  a  guide, 
without  a  redeemer,  a  preserver,  a  ruler  ;  as  having 
no  one  to  pray  to,  and  no  one  to  trust  to,  and  no  one 
to  account  to,  nor  any  to  encourage,  to  sustain,  to 
reward.  These  are  the  results  of  denial  of  either 
of  those  cardinal  truths  ;  Pantheism  threatens  on 
the  one  side,  Atheism  on  the  other.  And,  to  avoid 
those  extremes,  we  nmst,  from  the  heart,  embrace, 
and  ever  hold  fast,  and  ever  firmly  profess,  the  two 
sister  truths,  that  Almighty  God,  as  to  His  eternal, 


74*     THE   CHRISTIAN  IDEA   OF  ALMIGHTY  GOD. 

His  essential,  His  incommunicable  substance,  is  in- 
finitely and  absolutely  distinct  from  His  creation  and 
from  the  whole  frame  of  the  vast  universe  ;  and 
that  the  same  Almighty  God,  as  to  His  personal 
life,  His  power.  His  will,  His  thought,  His  love,  His 
providence.  His  knowledge.  His  vision,  is  everywhere 
present,  and  everywhere  most  intimately  connected 
with  that  same  creation,  with  every  creature,  and 
with  everything,  and  with  every  part  of  that  same 
universe.  These  two  affirmations  are  the  columns 
which  hold  up  the  sacred  temple  of  the  faith.  Take 
either  of  them  away,  and  the  edifice  topples  to  its 
utter  destruction  ;  and  if  it  so  go  down,  it  must  drag 
the  whole  social  system  into  the  chasm. 

There  remains  but  one  more  of  those  statements, 
to  the  unfolding  of  which  this  lecture  was  set  apart. 
Fourthly,  therefore.  Almighty  God  must  be  thought 
of  by  us  as  a  being  who  cannot  alter  or  change. 
You  remember  what  horrid  blasphemy  the  pantheist 
has  uttered  in  respect  of  progress,  and  development, 
and  improvement  in  God,  meaning,  by  God,  that 
eternal  substance  of  which  he  wildly  dreams.  But 
the  God  of  Christianity  and  of  the  gospel  is  not 
that  image  which  the  philosophers  have  set  up.  He 
is  one  in  whom  there  can  be  no  variableness,  neither 
shadow  of  turning.  From  eternity  to  eternity  He 
abides  the  same.  God  is  the  same  in  two  respects: 
first,  as  regards  His  essential  being,  in  which  no 
alteration  can  occur ;  and  secondly,  as  regards  our 


THE   CHRISTIAN  IDEA   OF  ALMIGHTY  GOD.     75 

thoughts  and  conceptions  of  Him,  which  cannot  in 
the  least  degree  affect  His  positive  reality.  In  de- 
claring that  unchangeableness,  therefore,  we  intend 
that  double  reference;  we  mean  to  say,  not  only  that 
He  is  evermore  the  same  God,  yesterday,  and  to-day, 
and  forever,  but  also,  that  His  independence  of  any 
cogitations  of  ours  concerning  Him  could  by  no  pos- 
sibility be  more  complete.  All  this  is  expressed  in 
that  sublimest  name  that  ever  was  uttered  or  con- 
ceived, that  name  which  He  announced  as  His  own, 
Ego  sum  qui  sum :  "  /  am  that  I  am.''  What  mar- 
vellous power,  what  inflexibility  of  strength,  w^hat 
calm  majesty  in  that  title  :  "  I  am  that  I  am  !  "  The 
same,  the  unchanging,  the  Lord,  from  age  to  age. 
Not,  "  I  am  whatsoever  you  think  me  to  be ;"  not, 
"  I  am  this  to  one  man  and  that  to  another ;  "  not, 
"I  am  to  you  whatever  you  prefer  that  I  should  be, 
whatever  you,  as  you  follow  your  self-willed  thoughts, 
consider  that  I  ought  to  be,  and  feel  confident  that  I 
must  be ;  but,  I  am  that  I  am  !  I  am  He  that  was 
from  eternity,  and  is  now,  and  is  to  come.  I  am 
He  that  hath  no  dependence  on  the  world,  nor  any 
need  of  man ;  that  taketh  not  counsel  of  creatures, 
neither  hath  learned  from  them  the  path  of  judg- 
ment. I  am  the  first  and  the  last.  The  Creator. 
The  Father.  The  Provident  Ruler.  The  Maker 
of  man,  the  Redeemer  of  man,  the  Sanctifier  of  man. 
Your  Lord,  your  Rewarder,  your  Judge.  O  chil- 
dren   of  men,  what  avail    your  thoughts  that    ye 


76      THE   CHRISTIAN  IDEA   OF  ALMIGHTY  GOD. 

should  think  by  them  to  affect  the  absolute  truth  of 
My  beiii^  1  How  can  ye  dream  this  wild  thing, 
that  I  should  change  with  any  and  with  every  im- 
agination of  your  minds  concerning  Me  %  Can  there 
be  named  in  all  the  range  of  human  delusions  one 
so  huge  as  this,  that  any  man  should  suppose  that 
God  is  whatever  he  imagines  God  to  be  I  Can  there 
be  told,  of  all  the  duties  of  man,  one  more  necessary 
than  this,  that  he  hold  fast  his  belief  in  the  absolute 
perfection,  in  the  entire  self-sufficiency,  of  his  Crea- 
tor 1  I  am  that  I  am.  Judge  not  of  Me  by  any 
rule  of  your  own,  but  judge  by  what  I  have  de- 
clared. Hear  not  men,  but  listen  to  My  eternal 
word.  My  Son,  the  only  begotten,  He  hath  de- 
clared Me.  Hear  ye  Him.  For  He  only  hath  the 
words  of  life.  Learn  of  Him  My  great  and  glorious 
name,  —  the  name  of  one  who  is  immutable,  unalter- 
able, beyond  the  reach  of  any  and  all  agencies,  in 
the  perfection  of  My  eternal  state  and  nature." 

Thus,  belov^ed  brethren,  has  the  attempt  been  made 
to  set  forth  to  you  the  Christian  idea  of  God ;  or 
rather,  to  speak  of  God,  not  as  men  have  thought 
Him  to  be,  but  as  in  truth  He  is.  You  have  heard 
the  declarations  of  the  Church  to  all  mankind,  in 
this  behalf :  — 

First,  that  He  is  really  a  personal  being,  like 
ourselves. 

Secondly,  that  He  is  in  no  way  confused  or  com- 
mingled with  the  works  of  His  hands,  but  infinitely 
distinct  from  them. 


THE   CHRISTIAN  IDEA   OF  ALMIGHTY  GOD.     77 

Thirdly,  that  He  is  most  intimately  connected  with 
the  world  and  with  all  its  inhabitants,  with  all  that 
therein  is. 

Fourthly,  that  He  is  what  He  is,  positively  and 
absolutely,  whatever  our  views  or  opinions  concern- 
ing- Him  may  be. 

Take  these  first  principles  of  our  holy  religion 
as  tests,   amid  the  vagueness  of    modern  thought. 
Make  these  great  truths  the  starting-point  of  your 
faith,  and  the  boundaries  of  every  imagination   of 
your  spirits  concerning  the  Most  High.     When  you 
are  presented  with  the  theory  of  a  God   who  has 
evidently  been  fashioned  and  shaped  by  the  subtle 
wit  of   man  to  suit  its  own  preconceptions,  know 
that  this  idea  is  a  mere  idol,  and  reject  and  denounce 
it  as  a  travesty  of  that  high  and  lofty  One  whose 
sublime  existence  is  independent  of  aught  beyond 
itself.     When  you  hear  men  talk  of  a  God  who 
cares  not  for  this  world,  nor  for  us,  nor  for  our  af- 
fairs, —  of  a  God  who  is  supposed  to  have  resigned 
to  arbitrary  and  unthinking  law  the  order  and  direc- 
tion of  the  course  of  this  world,  —  reject  that  low 
conception  as  an  utter  misrepresentation,  as  a  shame- 
less parody  of  Him  by  whom  the  very  hairs  of  our 
heads  are  all  numbered  ;  without  whom  not  even  a 
sparrow  falleth  to  the  ground  ;   whose  eye,  whose 
love,  whose  providence,  whose   power,  are   every- 
where, searching  the  darkness  and  the  light,  and 
never  failing,  in   any  instant  of  time,  nor  at  any 


78      THE   CHRISTIAN  IDEA   OF  ALMIGHTY  GOD. 

point  of  the  immeasurable  universe.  As  for  a  God 
who  is  substantially  one  with  his  creatures;  or 
who  dwells  afar,  careless  of  our  concerns ;  or  who 
is  destitute  of  thought,  or  sight,  or  consciousness  ; 
who  can  work  no  miracle,  who  can  speak  no  word 
to  our  bodily  ears,  who  cannot  show  Himself  to  our 
bodily  vision  :  there  is  no  such  being,  save  in  the 
brains  of  the  deceiver  and  the  deceived.  The  real 
God  is  indeed  a  reality ;  the  God  with  whom  we 
have  to  do  is  not  a  creature  of  our  minds,  but  the 
sovereign  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth.  It  is  He  that 
made  the  world  and  all  things  therein  ;  who  giveth 
to  all  life  and  breath  and  all  things  ;  who  hath  made 
of  one  blood  all  nations  of  men  for  to  dwell  on  all 
the  face  of  the  earth,  and  hath  determined  the  times 
before  appointed  and  the  bounds  of  their  habitations; 
who  is  not  far  from  every  one  of  us.  This  is  the  God 
whom  Paul  preached,  when  he  stood  on  Mars'  Hill, 
face  to  face  with  the  epicureans  and  the  stoics  of  an- 
cient time.  This  is  the  God  whom  we  must  preach 
face  to  face  with  the  spiritualists,  the  transcenden- 
talists,  the  philosophers  of  modern  days.  Nor  doubt 
the  triumph  of  the  faith  in  Him.  Though  these 
false  priests  build  up  their  altar  of  abomination,  and 
fashion  their  god  and  set  him  up  thereon ;  though 
they  substitute  the  worship  of  a  rationalistic  deity 
for  the  old,  the  only  hope  of  all  the  ends  of  the 
earth ;  though  they  cry  from  morning  even  till  noon, 
"  O  Baal,  hear  us ! "  though  antichrist  be  thus  re- 


THE   CHRISTIAN  IDEA   OF  ALMIGHTY  GOD.     79 

vealed  as  the  latter  days  come  nigh ;  and  though  this 
false  deity  at  length  appear  sitting  in  the  temple  of 
God,  and  showing  himself  that  he  is  God,  even  in 
the  temple  of  the  deluded  heart  and  mind  which  de- 
ifies its  own  opinion  and  bows  before  it :  yet  wait, 
brethren,  till  the  time  of  the  evening  sacrifice,  till 
the  altars  be  rebuilt,  till  the  true  God  appear  in 
glory  for  the  salvation  of  His  people  ;  and  then  the 
dream  shall  be  over  and  the  spell  broken,  and  there 
shall  be  heard  a  sound,  as  it  were  the  voice  of  great 
multitudes  and  of  many  waters;  and  as  that  awful 
sound  takes  shape  and  volume,  it  shall  ascend  far  to 
the  pealing  dome  above,  proclaiming,  "  The  Lord, 
He  is  the^God  !     The  Lord,  He  is  the  God !  " 


80    THE   CHRISTIAN  FAITH  IN  ITS  APPLICATIONS. 


LECTURE  VI. 

THE   CHKISTIAN  FAITH  IN  ITS  APPLICATIONS. 

In  the  preceding-  lecture  there  was  set  forth, 
though  briefly  and  imperfectly,  the  true  Catholic 
faith  concerning  the  existence  and  attributes  of  Al- 
mighty God.  It  now  remains  to  draw  our  remarks 
to  a  close.  We  have  passed  together  through  those 
places  in  which,  as  in  a  synagogue  of  Satan,  strange 
doctrines  are  taught;  we  have  heard  the  sound  of 
other  systems  ;  we  have  measured  the  length  of 
their  separation  from  the  everlasting  truth,  and  have 
gauged  the  depth  of  that  abyss  into  which  they  are 
capable  of  casting  down  the  mind  of  him  who  yields 
to  their  solicitations.  Emeroina-  at  leng-th  from 
those  forbidding  regions  of  profane  speculation,  we 
have  considered  in  a  general  way,  and  with  a  view 
to  comparison,  the  leading  principles  of  the  Chris- 
tian faith  concerning  Almighty  God.  It  is  now 
proposed,  by  way  of  a  suitable  conclusion  of  the 
work,  to  dwell  upon  the  idea  of  Him  as  that  idea 
is  presented  to  us  in  the  Church,  and  to  show  its 
practical  application  in  the  order  of  our  daily  life. 

How  clear  is  that  idea,  and  how  full !  how  plain 


THE  CHRISTIAN  FAITH  IN  ITS  APPLICATIONS.   81 

and  accessible  to  the  grasp  of  faith !  how  capable  of 
meeting  all  spiritual  requirement  and  necessity !  A 
home-like  presence,  a  familiar  neighborhood,  a  close 
and  true  and  real  relationship.  "  What  shall  a  man 
give  in  exchange  for  his  soul  ]  "  saith  the  Lord. 
But  of  Him,  and  of  the  Father,  may  we  exclaim, 
using  and  applying  His  words,  "  What  shall  a  man 
give  in  exchange  for  his  God  %  "  Surely,  if  be- 
reaved of  our  simple  faith  in  God,  —  the  Father,  the 
Son,  the  Holy  Ghost,  —  we  could  never  rest  content 
with  any  of  those  loose  and  vague  conceptions  to- 
which  the  holy  name  has  been  applied.  The  phan- 
tom raised  by  Philosophy,  the  shadow  evoked  by 
that  witchcraft  of  the  subtle  understanding,  by  that 
magic  of  the  godless  imagination,  —  this  phantom, 
this  shadow,  is  not  that  in  which  we  have  trusted, 
nor  is  it  He  whom  we  do  know. 

Perhaps  the  readiest  way  of  learning  how  pre- 
cious, how  satisfying  is  the  idea  of  God,  as  He 
hath  revealed  Himself  to  us  through  the  Gospel, 
would  be  to  reflect  how  much  and  what  we  should 
lose  if  that  idea  were  lost,  —  how  much  of  our  daily 
life  must  go,  if  that  idea  were  gone. 

Imagine,  therefore,  a  state  of  things  which  may 
perhaps  arrive  before  the  end  of  the  world ;  and 
suppose  that  the  belief  in  the  Holy  Trinity,  the 
God  of  Christianity,  had  become,  for  the  most  part, 
extinct  in  the  breasts  of  men.  And  suppose  that 
in  its  place  there  had  become  established  (if  aught 
6 


8£    THE   CHRISTIAN  FAITH  IN  ITS  APPLICATIONS. 

SO  shapeless  and  anomalous  can  be  spoken  of  as 
established)  the  theory  of  a  Universal-Substance- 
Deity,  and  the  idea  of  a  self-development  in  that 
substance  as  the  only  mode  of  life  and  advance,  and 
as  the  only  assignable  reason  or  explanation  of 
things  as  they  occur  and  are.  And,  furthermore, 
suppose  some  man,  who  should  be  the  survivor 
from  a  former  age  of  faith,  —  one  who  had  believed 
once,  but  afterwards  resigned  and  renounced  his 
earlier  thoughts, — a  man  who,  once  a  Christian,  had 
outlived  his  better  days,  to  stand  at  last  avowed  a 
philosophizer  and  a  rationalist.  To  what  should 
such  a  man  look  back'?  And,  as  comparing  his 
former  with  his  later  self,  what  should  he  have 
lost,  and  to  what  extent  would  his  intelligent  and 
conscious  existence  have  been  affected  by  the 
change  %     Let  us  reflect. 

And  first,  to  speak  of  his  personal  and  individual 
life.  From  that  sphere  all  idea  of  a  Father,  a  Pro- 
tector, a  Guide,  a  Friend,  would  have  utterly  faded 
away.  The  God  of  Pantheism  is  not  a  Providence 
over  us  :  it  has  no  thought,  no  heart,  no  love,  no 
power.  All  those  conceptions,  therefore,  in  respect 
to  the  Deity,  would  have  become  extinct  in  the 
mind  of  the  man  whose  case  we  are  considering. 
In  the  morning  light,  as  he  opened  his  eyes  to  it, 
there  would  be  no  sign  of  a  Divine  Protection,  re- 
newing the  days  of  his  life ;  and  though  the  sun 
arose  never  so  brightly  in  the  splendors  of  the  east. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  FAITH  IN  ITS  APPLICATIONS.    83 

there  would  be  no  logical  ground  for  thankfulness 
towards  any  Ruler  of  th6  Universe,  for  the  gift  of 
that  warm  and  clear  shining.       So,  too,  the   song 
of  nature,  reviving  at  the  dawn  and  in  the  beams 
of  the  new  day,  must  be  no  longer  interpreted  as 
if  it  were  a  hymn  of  praise  ;   but  the  crowing  of 
the  cock,  the  matins  of  birds,  the  hum   of  joyous 
life,  all  breaking  forth  together  in  full  concert,  nmst 
be  accounted  but  a  series  of  fatalistic  occurrences, 
and  not  the  response  of  a  glad  creation  to  that  be- 
neficent Creator  from  whom  it  all  hath  birth.      Our 
Father  would  have  been   banished  from  the  dawn 
and  early  morning  hour,  and  what  was  once,  and 
is   now,  to    Christian   ears,  a    cheerful   anthem   of 
praise  in  which  it  becomes  man  to  bear  his  part  by 
devotion,  thanksgiving,  and  prayer,  would  change 
to  a  medley  of  sounds,  without  a  purpose  and  with- 
out an   object.      But  again :    this  philosopher-relig- 
ionist must  go  forth  to  the  duties  of   the  day, — 
nay,  not  to  the  duties,  there  can  be  no  such  thing, 
for   where    there    is   no    relationship   there  can  be 
no  duty, — he  must  go  forth  to  his  work,  with  no 
sense  of  One  who   shall  work  with  him  ;   with  no 
invocation  of  a  blessing  from  any  quarter,  for  there 
can  be  no  blessing  where  there  is  none  to  speak  it. 
And  so,  through  the  twelve  hours  of  the   day,  he 
would  pursue  his  course,  so  far  as  any  power  above 
him  might  be  regarded,  alone.     No  eye  to  watch, 
no  ear  to  hear,  no  hand  to  show  the  path  ;  not  one 


8i    THE  CHRISTIAN  FAITH  IN  ITS  APPLICATIONS. 

in  heaven  to  care  for,  to  mark,  to  approve,  to  re- 
gard. To  his  view  those  heavens  must  be  utterly 
empty :  no  angels  there,  no  throne  high  and  lifted 
up,  no  paradise,  no  happy  souls  in  light;  nought 
but  a  great  concavity  of  self-forming,  self-develop- 
ing material,  cold  as  the  ice,  pitiless  as  winter, 
empty  as  his  own  heart.  Thus  going  through  the 
day  in  solitude,  he  is  overtaken  at  last  by  the  fall 
of  night ;  and  the  night,  so  falling  on  that  barren 
day,  is  the  fit  and  true  symbol  of  the  darkness  of 
a  universe  without  a  God  distinct  from  itself. 

Such  must  be,  to  the  man  whose  position  we 
are  tracing  in  imagination,  the  experience  of  any 
common  day  of  his  life,  when  days  run  smoothly 
by.  But  days  do  not  always  keep  that  even,  meas- 
ured beat.  There  are  emergencies  in  life,  times 
of  crisis,  of  doubtfulness,  of  sorrow.  There  are 
days  when  a  man  needs  counsel,  and  days  when 
he  needs  consolation.  But  with  the  recession  of  a 
faith  such  as  Christianity  bestows,  the  Comforter 
retires  and  the  Counsellor  departs  away.  So  he 
must  find  that  all  those  fountains  of  wisdom  at 
which  men  have  been  wont  to  drink  are  dried, 
and  that  all  the  springs  of  relief  are  frozen  at  the 
source.  In  the  Substance-Deity  of  Pantheism 
there  is  no  personality,  and  therefore  there  can  be 
no  care,  no  compassion,  no  knowledge  of  our  grief. 
To  look  to  that  shapeless  and  anomalous  mass  for 
any  sympathy  with  suffering  man,  would  be  vainer 


THE   CHRISTIAN  FAITH  IN  ITS  APPLICATIONS.    85 

than  to  talk  to  the  electric  fluid,  or  to  invoke  the 
vaporous  drift  of  the  open  sea.     Where  tears  fell 
fast  as  rain,  they  must  continue  to  fall  unregarded. 
Where  sorrow  bowed  herself,  scarce  half-alive,  upon 
the  face  or  the   relics  of  the  loved  and  lost,  there 
would  she  be  suffered  to  stay,  and  there  to  harden 
to    insensibility   or    sink    in    absolute    despair.      In 
time  of  doubt,  no  Counsellor;   in  time  of  trouble, 
no  Comforter  ;  nor  any  explanation  of  the  riddles 
of  hfe,  nor  any  alleviation  for  its  distresses.     No 
sense    of   duty   to  constrain  the   rich  ;    no  trustful 
faith,  no  devout  resignation,  to  mitigate  the  adverse 
lot  of  the  poor.     And  so — to   pass  from  private 
affairs  to  those   of  a  wider  range  —  the  common, 
social   life   must  remain  in   a  state  of  confusion  as 
thorough  as  that  of  the  individual  career,  so  far  as 
any  explanation  of  its  course  and  intent  and  object 
are  concerned.      As  for  history,  the  man   who  has 
lost  his  creed  and  his  faith  must  also  give  that  up 
forever.     Regarded   as   an    intelligent    solution    of 
successive  events,   history   would   no    longer    exist. 
The  world  must  be  regarded  as  moving  on  without 
superintendence :   no   thought  could  be  less  reason- 
able, on  this  hypothesis,  than  that  of  an  intelligent 
agent  distinct  from  the  world   observing  the  drift 
of  human  affairs,  and  carrying  on  good  and  grand 
designs  through  the  chances   and  changes  of  life. 
Thus,  with  the  loss  of  the  true  faith,  and  upon  the 
substitution  for  it  of  the  weak  philosophy  and  the 


86    THE   CHRISTIAN  FAITH  IN  ITS  APPLICATIONS. 

vain  traditions  of  men,  there  must  ensue  a  gradual 
but  sure  disappearance  of  Almighty  God.  He 
withdraws  from  the  life  of  the  individual,  from  the 
life  of  the  community,  from  the  life  of  the  nation, 
from  the  life  of  human  kind.  He  ceases.  He  de- 
parts, and  men  are  left  alone.  No  thought,  no 
care,  no  heart,  no  love,  beyond  ourselves.  No  law, 
no  duty,  no  crime,  no  good,  no  evil.  No  aim  in 
life,  no  joy,  no  hope  for  the  future.  No  one  to  be 
grateful  to,  none  to  fear,  none  to  offend.  No  bless- 
ing to  ask,  no  curse  to  escape.  No  reward  in  toil, 
no  fruit  in  labor ;  no  hand  to  dry  the  tears,  no  ear 
to  hear  the  prayer.  No  mission  for  nations,  no 
honor  for  states,  no  object  for  citizens.  No  pious 
dedication  of  the  infant,  no  creed  to  teach  the  child, 
no  blessing  of  strength  and  grace  for  tlie  youth. 
No  divine  sanction  for  the  marriage  relation,  no 
obligations  for  hearth  and  home.  No  worship  for 
the  living,  no  sacraments,  no  intercession  for  the 
sick,  and  for  the  dead  no  psalm  of  life  and  immor- 
tality. No  grace  to  say  over  the  daily  bread,  no 
invocation  ere  we  lay  us  down  to  sleep,  no  word  of 
thanks  for  the  dawn  of  another  day.  All  gone. 
All  that  speaks  of  God,  —  all  that  implies  God,  — 
all  that  breathes  of  Him,  or  refers  to  Him,  or  de- 
rives its  signification  from  Him,  —  all  gone  forever, 
like  a  dissolving  dream.  No  Father,  no  personal 
Friend,  no  providential  Guide,  no  Wonder-worker, 
no    Jnspirer    and    Hearer    of   prayer :    all    lost    at 


TEE   CHRISTIAN  FAITH  IN  ITS  APPLICATIONS.    8J 

once,  with  the  loss  of  faith  in  a  God  distinct  from 
the  world,  yet  near  to  us  ;  a  spirit,  yet  personally 
like  ourselves  ;  Himself  unchanging,  and  near  to 
us  all,  as  Creator,  Redeemer,  Sanctifier,  —  as  the 
most  august,  the  most  complete  of  all  existences,  — 
even  as  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost. 

Alas !  my  brethren,  where  should  we  be  left  with 
all  this  gone  ?  And  what  would  that  be  worth  to 
us  which  yet  remained  ?  Go  it  must,  —  all  this  to 
which  we  have  held  fast,  all  this  in  which  we  have 
trusted,  —  if  philosophy  should  supplant  faith. 
There  is  no  faith,  save  one,  —  the  faith  in  the  Most 
High  and  undivided  Trinity,  "  One  Lord^  One 
^ Faiths  One  Baptism^  One  God  and  Father  of  all^ 
who  is  ahove  all^  and  through  all^  and  in  us  atl^ 
To  Him,  as  to  our  stronghold,  let  us  turn,  and  let 
us  cling  with  firmer  grasp  to  our  traditional  belief 
in  Him.  God  is  no  stranger  here  ;  and  what  we 
hold  and  profess  concerning  Him  is  no  uncertain 
theory,  no  doubtful  and  hesitating  experiment.  We 
know  Him  well ;  we  know  Him  as  we  know  each 
other.  It  is  He  that  hath  made  us,  and  not  we 
ourselves ;  that  hath  made  us  of  the  dust,  that  hath 
fashioned  us  as  the  potter  mouldeth  the  clay,  so  as 
that  we  are  no  part  of  Himself,  albeit  He  is  not 
far  from  every  one  of  us,  albeit  He  is  through  all, 
and  in  us  all.  But  He  who  created  us,  and  in 
whom  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being,  knows 
us,  and  observes,  and  has  intimate  and  familiar  ac- 


88    THE   CHRISTIAN  FAITH  IN  ITS  APPLICATIONS. 

quaintaiice  with  everything  about  us,  from  first  to 
last.  There  is  no  human  knowledge  to  be  com- 
pared with  His  in  fulness;  there  is  no  discernment 
to  be  named  in  the  same  breath  with  His  for  pre- 
cision. His  thought  embraces  us  and  all  our  con- 
cerns, and  His  eye  follows  and  investigates  our 
every  step.  He,  moreover,  is  our  true  home, — the 
One  for  whom  we  were  made,  —  He  whose  glory  is 
the  end  of  our  existence,  and  without  whom  the 
nations  are  as  nothing,  yea,  less  than  nothing  and 
vanity.  All  our  strength  is  in  Him,  and  from 
Him  is  all  our  hope.  When  He  thought  good  so 
to  do.  He  created  us.  And  when  we  had  fallen 
He  redeemed  us.  And  now  that  He  has  made  us 
His  own.  He  sanctifieth  us.  There  is  nothing  upon 
earth  so  sure  as  the  hallowed  round  of  doctrine, 
truth,  and  usage,  known  as  His  revelation.  It  is 
all  authentic ;  it  cannot  change  or  fail.  While  the 
statute  books  of  nations  have  become  antiquated 
and  obsolete,  the  Holy  Scriptures  remain  ever  fresh 
and  ever  new.  While  the  nations  perish  and  cease, 
the  Church  still  stands  and  renews  her  youth  ;  for 
God  is  in  the  midst  of  her,  therefore  shall  she  not 
be  removed.  He  is  no  vague  dream,  no  impersonal 
substance.  It  was  His  Son,  eternal  like  Himself, 
who  dwelt  here  among  us,  and  was  called  Jesus 
Christ ;  it  was  He  who  was  nailed,  in  ancient  time, 
upon  a  cross,  and  who  died  thereon ;  it  was  He 
that    was    buried,    that    rose   again    of    a    Sunday 


THE    CHRISTIAN  FAITH  IN  ITS  APPLICATIONS.    89 

morning-  in  the  sweet  spring-time,  and  afterwards 
ascended  to  heaven.  In  the  Redeemer  of  men 
there  was,  of  course,  a  personaHty  as  perfect  and 
complete  as  there  can  he  in  men  themselves ;  and 
that  personality  was  the  same  which  was  from  the 
beginning,  is  now,  and  ever  shall  be,  the  person  of 
the  eternal  Son  of  God,  eternal  as  to  all  the  past, 
eternal  as  to  the  future.  This  is  He  whom  we 
have  believed.  And  while  we  recognize  Him,  hour 
by  hour,  in  this  mortal  life,  as,  with  the  Father  and 
the  Holy  Ghost,  its  Author,  its  Ruler,  its  Sus- 
tainer ;  so  does  this  recognition  ascend  to  a  higher 
pitch  of  marvel  and  joy  than  any  tongue  could  avail 
to  express,  when  we  contemplate  the  wonder  of  our 
redemption.  For  us  He  died ;  for  us  He  gave 
Himself  a  sacrifice ;  and  freely  hath  He  thereupon 
given  us  all  things  to  make  that  redemption  avail- 
able, to  make  that  sacrifice  our  acceptable  ransom. 
Ours  is  the  whole  system  of  grace,  —  a  system 
adapted  to  all  people  and  to  every  place  and  time, 
and  bespeaking  the  Lord  God  in  the  most  ami- 
able and  blessed  of  relationships,  the  Father,  the 
Friend,  the  lover  of  His  creatures.  When  we 
find  comfort  in  the  reception  of  the  holy  sacra- 
ments of  the  Church,  it  is  because  they  are  the  links 
between  Him  and  our  souls.  When,  at  the  read- 
ing of  His  Holy  Word,  our  hearts  do  burn  within 
us,  it  is  because  His  voice  is  speaking  to  our  ears, 
because  His  spirit  is  communing  with   our   spirits. 


90    THE  CHRISTIAN  FAITH  IN  ITS  APPLICATIONS. 

because  our  eyes  are  fastened  on  the  very  syllables 
which  His  good  hand  hath  penned.  When,  in  the 
sanctity  of  the  first  day  of  the  week,  there  comes 
refreshment  to  the  weary  spirits  and  bodies  of  those 
who  then  may  rest,  it  is  because  that  day  is  the 
everlasting  prophecy  to  man  of  the  Sabbath  of 
God's  eternity.  When,  seeking  the  calm  shelter 
of  the  house  of  prayer,  we  forget,  for  a  space,  the 
din  of  the  world,  it  is  because  we  feel  that  He  is 
there  with  whom  it  is  good  for  man  to  be  alone. 
The  relief  of  confession  of  sin ;  the  sweetness  of 
acts  of  penitential  discipline ;  the  strength  which 
slides  down  from  above  into  the  soul  and  spirit,  in 
answer  to  humble,  persevering  prayer  ;  the  conscious 
joy  in  acts  of  mercy  and  love ;  all  these,  and  the 
hundred  more  of  such  like  emotions,  are  what 
they  are,  simply  because  God  is  what  He  is,  and  be- 
cause we  believe  what  He  has  told  us  of  Himself, 
and  because  we  know  that  He  saith  true.  Ours, 
then,  in  so  far  as  we  are  Christians,  is  the  undying 
confidence  in  Him  which  alone  can  support  us  in 
all  dangers,  and  carry  us  through  all  temptations, 
the  realization  of  His  presence,  the  experience  of 
His  power,  the  thrilling,  sensitive  response  to  the 
calls  of  His  Holy  Spirit,  the  trust  in  His  strength, 
the  veneration  for  His  wisdom,  the  rejoicing  ac- 
quiescence in  His  will.  We  make  of  Him  an  ac- 
quaintance, we  picture  Him  to  ourselves  as  a  friend, 
we  think  of  Him  as  of  a  neighbor ;  in  Christ,  He  is 


THE   CHRISTIAN  FAITH  IN  ITS  APPLICATIONS.   Ql 

become  to  us  a  wise,  a  good,  a  great,  a  glorious, 
a  perfect  man.  There  can  be  no  vagueness  in  such 
a  faith  in  God.  There  can  be  no  wavering  in  prin- 
ciples such  as  these.  There  can  be  little  doubt  as 
to  the  future,  —  as  little  as  there  is  of  mistrust  in 
the  present.  We  know  our  calling.  We  can  see 
ahead  a  long  way.  We  look  not  to  the  future  as 
a  blank.  It  is  an  ocean,  over  which  we  have  not 
yet  spread  our  sail ;  but  the  Bible  is  our  chart,  and 
our  faith  is  the  compass,  and  we  shall  not  fear  as 
we  launch  forth. 

Beloved  brethren,  the  words  which  have  now 
been  said  respecting  that  future  towards  which  we 
are  hastening,  recall  the  necessity  of  finding  a  con- 
clusion for  these  studies  and,  perhaps,  rambling 
thoughts.  How,  then,  shall  the  conclusion  be 
made'?  By  reflecting  on  the  conclusion  itself ;  on 
the  conclusion  of  any  earthly  career,  as  it  must 
appear  upon  the  pantheistic  hypothesis,  or  upon 
the  analogy  of  the  Christian  religion.  We  have 
thought  together  of  that  dismal  system  which  de- 
nies the  personal  God;  which  makes  the  universe 
eternal ;  which  views  God  and  the  universe  as  sub- 
stantially one ;  which  regards  all  visible  things,  and 
man  himself,  as  but  evolvings  of  the  primal  sub- 
stance, as  but  phenomena  in  a  fated  sequence  of  de- 
velopment. That  system  would  be  dismal  when  stud- 
ied at  every  advantage,  —  by  a  man  in  full  health, 
and  rich,  and  free  from  care  and  responsibility,  and 


92    THE  CHRISTIAN  FAITH  IN  ITS  APPLICATIONS. 

at  the  hour  of  noontide,  and  amid  scenes  of  outward 
prosperity  and  peace.  Even  then,  the  system  would 
be  ahnost  oppressive  in  some  yet  uncomprehended 
awe  and  mystery  of  prophetic  failure.  How,  then, 
must  it  appear,  if  all  these  circumstances  should  be 
reversed  I  How  must  these  tenets  sound,  when 
spoken  to  the  heart  of  poverty,  of  pain,  of  grief? 
How,  finally,  must  this  cup  of  consolation  taste, 
when  presented  and  offered  to  the  lips  of  the  dying-  ? 
Go  to  the  man  whose  hour  is  come  that  he  should 
depart  out  of  this  world,  and  speak  to  him,  in  the 
name  of  this  philosophy,  such  message  as  it  can 
convey;  and  if  there  be  a  shadow  darker  than  the 
shadow  of  death,  these  tender  mercies  of  the  pan- 
theistic creed  shall  pour  that  hopeless  shadow, 
broad  and  still,  upon  his  forehead  and  upon  his 
soul.  There  is  no  light  beneath  that  shade ;  there 
can  be  no  dawn  beyond.  Go  to  the  man  whose 
hour  is  come,  and  tell  him  that  all  is  over  forever- 
more  ;  that  he  has  played  his  part  in  the  fatal  se- 
quence, and  now  must  disappear  eternally ;  that  he 
was  but  a  portion  of  the  absolute  substance,  a  man- 
ifestation for  a  moment,  an  evolution,  and  that  the 
gulf  which  vomited  forth  the  atom  is  about  to  en- 
gorge it  again.  Tell  him  that  his  whole  course 
here  on  earth  has  been  but  a  dream ;  that  his  con- 
sciousness was  but  the  consciousness  of  a  deep- 
heaving  matter  ;  that  whether  that  portion  which 
he  calls  himself  shall  ever  appear  again  in  realized 


THE   CHRISTIAN  FAITH  IN  ITS  APPLICATIONS.   93 

form  or  conscious  shape  is  utterly  beyond  the 
power  of  prediction ;  that  life  and  time  are  but 
"  an  everlasting  shore,  that  tumbles  in  the  godless 
deep ;  "  and  that  for  him  there  now  remains  but 
this,  — 

"  To  drop,  head-foremost,  in  the  jaws 
Of  vacant  darkness,  and  to  cease  ;  "  — 

tell  him  all  this,  the  gospel  of  Pantheism,  and 
then  withdraw,  lest  the  curse  follow  fast  upon  your 
footsteps  from  the  lips  of  despair  and  death.  Yet 
not,  perhaps,  the  curse  ;  perhaps  the  blessing, — yea, 
the  blessing  upon  you,  who,  in  thus  exhibiting  the 
last  resources  of  Philosophy,  in  thus  revealing  in 
the  most  critical  time  her  utter  incompetency  as  a 
guide  or  a  comfort,  have  been  the  means  of  awak- 
ing the  soul  from  its  delusion,  and  breaking  the 
spells  of  Satan,  though  at  the  eleventh  hour  of  life. 
Many  a  man  who,  through  long  and  hardened 
years,  has  had  no  better  hope  than  such  as  this, 
at  the  close  of  all  hath  yet,  and,  let  us  trust,  not 
too  late,  recoiled  from  the  awful  emptiness  in  the 
face  of  whiph  he  had  dwelt,  and  flung  himself,  in 
mortal  extremity,  in  anguish  of  spirit,  at  the  throne 
of  the  Father,  and  at  the  feet  of  the  Great  High 
Priest.  Oh  what  peace  and  joy  is  there  in  believ- 
ing! What  perfect  confidence  in  the  will  and 
power  of  the  Christian's  Saviour,  of  the  Christian's 
God  !  And  what  calm  triumph,  in  the  final  hour, 
over  any  and  all  fears  of   death  !     "  Preeiosa  in 


9i    THE   CHRISTIAN  FAITH  IN  ITS  APPLICATIONS. 

conspectu  Domini  mors  sanctorum  ejus :  "  Precious 
in  the  sight  of  the  Lord  is  the  death  of  his  saints. 
For  them,  the  past  Hfe  is  a  dear,  a  sweet  reality: 
for  there  they  walked  with  Him ;  there  had  they 
experience  of  His  power  ;  there  they  learned  to  love 
Him.  and  there  they  were  made  ready  by  g^race  for 
all  that  is  to  come.  Dear  are  the  friends  they  met ; 
dear  those  whom  they  leave  ;  nor  is  the  parting 
over-sorrowful  for  nature  to  support,  since  presently 
they  that  are  Christ's  shall  meet  again.  And  if  the 
past  be  real,  (Oh  very  real  and  very  sweet  that  past 
of  a  Christian  life !)  what  shall  be  said  of  the  fu- 
ture \  No  "  vacant  darkness  "  there,  but  the  full 
and  warm  light  of  paradise.  No  awful  emptiness, 
but  the  house  of  many  mansions  resounding  eter- 
nally with  the  voice  of  joy.  The  Father's  house, — 
the  doors  therein  open,  the  pathway  thither  paved 
with  pure  gold,  and  the  angels  of  Heaven  descend- 
ing and  ascending  thereon  !  The  Lord,  standing 
above,  proclaiming  to  all  salvation,  and  unto  all 
peace.  The  children  thronging  thither  to  the  feast 
of  eternal  days.  This  is  the  vision  of  holy  death. 
All  fear  cast  out  in  perfect  love ;  all  doubt  dis- 
missed in  the  filial  confidence  of  the  heart.  Then 
the  comfort  of  the  Holy  Communion,  the  body  and 
blood  of  the  Lord ;  the  refreshment  of  prayer ; 
the  hopeful  "  farewell,"  being  but  for  a  little  time  ; 
the  commendation  of  the  soul,  made  by  the  min- 
ister of  the  gospel  of  Christ.     And  then  the  still- 


THE   CHRISTIAN  FAITH  IN  ITS  APPLICATIONS.    95 

ness, — the  stillness  which  is  such  on  our  side  alone  ; 
which,  on  the  other,  is  no  stillness,  hut  the  hlen cl- 
ing together  of  the  praises  of  the  rejoicing  hosts  on 
high.  And  then  the  temporary  sleep  of  the  hody 
in  the  care  of  our  Lord,  who  is  the  Resurrection 
and  the  Life.* 

O  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost !  high  and 
undivided  Trinity  !  To  Thee,  God  in  Three  Per- 
sons, he  ascribed  all  glory  and  praise !  To  Thee, 
O  Father,  do  we  owe  all  praise,  for  that  Thou  hast 
made  us  !  To  Thee,  O  Son,  do  we  owe  all  praise, 
for  that  Thou,  when  we  w^re  dead,  didst  make  us 
to  live  again  !  To  Thee,  O  Holy  Spirit,  do  we  owe 
all  praise,  for  that  Thou  dost  convert  us,  and  renew 
us  day  by  day  !  In  that  great  name  standeth  ever- 
more the  hope  of  the  world ;  in  that  great  name 
standeth  our  eternal  life.  And  long  after  the  proph- 
ecies have  failed,  and  the  tongues  have  ceased,  and 
the  knowledge  hath  vanished  away,  shall  be  pro- 
claimed, yea,  forever  and  forevermore, 

''  Lo  I  this  is  our  God  !  We  have  waited  for 
Him,  and  He  will  save  us :  this  is  the  Lord  ;  we 
have  waited  for  Him,  we  will  be  glad  and  rejoice  in 
His  salvation." 

*  See  Note  H. 


/' 


NOTES. 


NOTE   A. 

Mr.  Herbert  Spencer's  work  on  "  Universal  Progress," 
lately  reprinted  in  this  country,  has  appeared  since  these 
lectures  were  written.  I  could  not  have  desired  a  fuller 
illustration  than  that  which  it  affords  of  the  tone  and  results 
of  modern  rationalistic  thought.  The  term  which  best  de- 
scribes his  system  is  "  Mechanical  Atheism."  It  is  the  ne- 
gation of  a  divine  mind  and  will,  and  the  explanation  of  the 
origin  and  government  or  course  of  the  world  by  matter  and 
movement,  by  purely  mechanical  law^s,  and  by  the  blind 
forces  of  nature.  The  pantheistic  ideas  of  emanation  and  de- 
velopment appear  in  startling  rigidity;  the  dogma  of  the 
creation  is  contemptuously  flouted  ;  Christianity  is  accounted 
for  as  a  mere  phase  of  feeling ;  and  every  vestige  of  religion, 
as  we  understand  it,  vanishes.  Lest  these  expressions  should 
seem  too  strong,  I  quote  from  a  recent  review  of  the  work 
by  a  writer  not  known  to  me,  in  order  that  my  opinion  may 
be  justified :  — 

" '  Universal  Progress '  is  the  title  selected  by  the  author 
....  by  universal  progress  he  means  a  law  of  evolution 
common  to  all  beings  and  all  phenomena,  whether  mate- 
rial or  spiritual.  Many  even  of  the  so-called  powers  and 
forces  of  nature  are  developed  by  new  combinations  and  con- 
ditions that  have  gone  before  ....  the  same  doctrine  is 
applied  to  what  we  call  mental  powers.  These  are  only 
new  and  higher  manifestations  of  what  are  usually  called 
the  vital  forces,  when  brought  into  activity  under  fovoring 
physical  conditions ;  and  these  vital  forces  are  but  similar 


98  NOTES. 

developments  of  chemical  and  mechanical  powers,  under 
their  appropriate  excitants,  when  interposed  at  the  proper 
juncture." 

No  one  can  mistake  the  meaning  of  this  who  knows  the 
history  of  the  pantheistic  philosophy.  Let  us  hear  the  re- 
sults of  this  "  Universal  Progress  "  theory  in  its  apphcations 
to  the  grand  and  supreme  questions  of  God,  man,  the  soul, 
time,  and  eternity :  — 

"Of  the  object  of  religious  worship  Mr.  Spencer  says 
little  more  than  we  have  hinted.  In  his  '  First  Principles,' 
he  furnishes  an  elaborate  argument,  derived  from  his  philos- 
ophy, to  show  that  there  is  a  one  mysterious  something,  a 
somewhat,  the  object  of  worship,  whose  being  is  manifested 
in  the  universe,  but  whose  nature  and  relations  are  utterly 
unknown  and  unknowable.  His  nature  is  unknown,  because 
the  nature  of  everything  great  or  small  is  unknown,  and  is  a 
mystery.  His  relations  are  unknowable,  because  that  such 
a  being  should  have  relations  is  impossible  from  his  very 
nature  as  absolute  and  unrelated.  That  there  is  such  a 
being  we  know  ;  but  who  or  what  he  is  we  do  not  know, 
nor  can  we  ever  learn.  Like  time,  space,  force,  and  mo- 
tion, he  is ;  but  what  he  is  cannot  be  conceived  by  human 
thought.  The  apotheosis  of  his  system  is,  to  set  apart  and 
consecrate  the  universe  as  an  altar  '  to  the  unknown  God/ 
whom  all  men  must  worship,  but  all  alike  '  ignorantly, '  — 
whom,  therefore,  no  man  can  conceive  or  "  declare  "  to  another. 
Before  this  altar  each  successive  generation  must  prostrate 
itself  in  blind  devotion,  evolving  for  itself  a  form  of  creed 
and  worship  which  the  next  generation  must  inevitably 
abandon  and  outgrow." 

Such  are  the  results  of  the  latest  theory  of  rationalism,  — 
late  in  time,  but  in  substance  identical  with  the  systems  of 
the  old  pagan  schools.  I  spoke  of  this  scheme  as  "  Atheism." 
But  it  is  worse  than  Atheism  in  this,  that,  while  it  removes 
the  true  God  from  view,  it  does  not  leave  the  place  empty, 
but  puts  in  it  a  shadow  and  spectre  of  its  own  exorcising,  — 


NOTES.  99 

a  thing  which  means  nothing,  and  serves  no  purpose  except  to 
deceive  the  minds  of  the  ignorant.  In  the  name  of  all  that 
is  fair  and  manly,  we  protest  against  this  dissimulation ;  and 
we  affirm  that  if  these  men  were  honest  they  would  say  at 
once  what  they  really  think,  "There  is  no  God."  But 
they  cannot  say  that,  because  such  a  declaration  would  kill 
their  cause.  Reason  and  revelation  agree  entirely  in  their 
estimate  of  the  man  who  takes  that  position,  —  "  Dixit  insip- 
iens  in  corde  suo,  non  est  Deus^'  —  and  therefore  our  phi- 
losophers are  wary,  and  feign  this  veneration  for  a  "  some- 
what," to  w,hich  they  apply  the  sacred  name,  lest  the  people 
should  call  them  fools. 


NOTE  B. 
Historical  Sketch  of  Pantheism. 

For  the  satisfaction  of  those  who  would  pursue  the  subject 
sa  careful  students,  I  present  a  brief  outline  of  the  history  of 
this  great  system. 

It  offers  itself  to  us  under  two  aspects,  that  of  a  religious 
dogma,  and  that  of  a  speculative  philosophy.  The  latter  is 
a  development  of  the  former.  As  a  dogma  it  appears  in  the 
religions  of  the  ancient  world ;  as  a  speculation  it  is  domi- 
nant among  the  philosophies  of  later  days.  Under  each  as- 
pect it  has  been  the  persistent  adversary  of  revelation :  in 
antiquity  it  filled,  or  tried  to  fill,  the  void  left  by  the  loss  or 
defacement  of  the  primitive  tradition ;  while  in  modern  times 
it  has  constantly  opposed  the  religion  of  Christ. 

Beginning  with  the  earliest  days,  we  find  this  heresy  in 
India.  The  system  of  emanation,  as  opposed  to  the  idea  of 
creation,  is  the  fundamental  principle  in  the  Indian  theology. 
Brahma  is  not  a  creator,  but  all  things  emanated  from  him. 
The  theological  system  of  the  Brahmins  represents  the 
universe  as  evolved  from  Brahma,  and  as  reentering  into  him 
again ;   he  is   the  first   and   infinite   substance,  the  cosmic 


100  NOTES. 

unity,  and  in  the  creation  and  destruction  of  successive 
worlds  consist  his  life  and  death.  (See  the  Vedas,  and  the 
Code  of  Manou.) 

In  the  theology  of  Egypt  we  find  the  same  idea  of  ema- 
nation, and  we  miss  that  of  creation  proper.  (The  student 
may  refer  to  Herodotus,  Diodorus  Siculus,  Plutarch,  lam- 
blichus,  and  Porphyry.) 

From  the  Indian  and  Egy})tian  systems,  thus  standing 
first,  and  exhibiting  the  pantheistic  ideas  in  their  more  rigid 
form,  we  pass  to  those  of  Chaldaea  and  Persia,  which  ex- 
hibit modifications  of  the  former  principle. 

In  Chald^a,  dualism  appears,  a  supreme  deity  being  rec- 
ognized, and,  at  the  same  time,  an  eternal,  incorruptible,  and 
uncreate  matter. 

In  Persia  the  same  dualistic  idea  presents  itself,  but  the 
two  j)rinciples  are  regarded  as  in  antagonism  :  Ormuzd  and 
Ahriman  strive  for  the  mastery  amid  ill-defined  relationships. 

We  pass,  in  our  survey,  to  the  Greek  religions.  The  sub- 
ject is  undoubtedly  an  obscure  and  mysterious  one ;  and  yet 
the  old  Orphic  doctrines  seem  to  be  but  a  reproduction  of 
the  theory  of  emanation.  But  the  older  religious  ideas, 
whatever  they  may  have  been,  were  lost  in  the  materialism 
and  humanitarianism  which  absorbed  everything ;  and  when 
St.  Paul  preached  at  Athens,  it  is  evident  that  the  idea  of 
a  God  who  created  the  world,  and  who  governs  it  by  His 
providential  power,  was  lost  to  that  generation. 

The  school  of  Thales  was  founded  on  the  idea  of  a  dual- 
istic cosmogony,  like  that  of  the  Phoenician  and  Chaldiean 
systems  ;  while  that  of  Pythagoras  started  with  the  theory 
of  emanation,  and,  runninof  throu"rh  the  common  course  of 
pantheistic  principles,  attained  its  full  development  in  Ti- 
mtEus  of  Locris  and  Ocellus  of  Lucania. 

The  Pythagoreans  set  out  with  the  idea  that  all  existences 
are  included  in  the  Absolute  Unity.  Their  teachings  on  the 
subject  of  the  production  of  things  are  indistinct ;  or,  if  they 
teach  at  all,  they  seem  to  teach  the  system  of  emanation. 


NOTES.  101 

Xenophanes  took  up  the  question  of  the  production  of 
thmgs,  and,  beginning  with  the  denial  of  a  creation  ex  nihilo, 
conckided  that  the  universe  is  eternal,  that  there  is  but  one 
substance,  and  that  thought  is  the  only  immutable  reality. 

Parmenides  adopted  this  principle,  and  pushed  it  into  pure 
idealism,  denying  any  reality  to  the  finite,  and  saying  that 
all  thhigs  that  we  see  are  but  an  outward  show^,  that  there 
is  no  reiility  in  phenomena,  and  that  the  testimony  of  the 
senses  is  but  a  delusion  ;  he  also  maintained  that  thought 
and  the  object  of  thought  are  identical. 

From  this  extravagant  idealism  a  reaction  occurred.  Leu- 
cippus  and  Democritus  founded  the  materialistic  school. 

Heraclitus  endeavored  in  vain  to  find  a  means  of  harmo- 
nizing the  idealistic  and  materialistic  systems  of  the  day. 

Then  follow^ed  the  reign  of  universal  skepticism. 

It  was  when  the  mind  had  readied  that  wretched  position 
that  Socrates  appeared,  and  reformed  philosophy  by  con- 
founding the  sophists  by  his  well-known  mode  of  common- 
sense  argument ;  by  appealing  to  the  love  of  truth  and  vir- 
tue which  still  remains,  notwithstanding  every  disadvantage, 
in  men ;  and  by  leading  them  back  toward  intellectual  life. 
The  movement  given  by  him  led  to  the  rise  of  the  great 
schools  of  Plato,  Epicurus,  Aristotle,  and  Zeno ;  and  rigid 
Pantheism  for  a  time  disappeared  from  the  scene. 

But  in  the  school  of  Alexandria  the  old  heresy  revived, 
and  by  the  Gnostics  and  Neo-Platonists  it  w^as  formalized 
once  more. 

The  Gnostic  philosophy  had  for  its  base  the  system  of  em- 
anation. It  had  two  branches,  a  unitarian  and  a  dualistic. 
The  unitarian  Gnostics  held  one  principle,  from  which  all 
spiritual  and  material  substances  emanated  ;  while  the  dual- 
istic Gnostics  affirmed  two  eternal  principles,  spirit  and  mat- 
ter, of  one  or  the  other  of  which  all  beings  are  developments. 

The  Neo-Platonists  aimed  at  opposing  Christianity  and 
staying  its  triumphant  progress,  by  effecting  a  reconciliation 
of  all  the  philosophies  and  of  the  religious  traditions  of  the 


102  NOTES. 

nations.  It  was  an  immense  syncretism.  They  then  pro- 
posed a  theurgic  system  by  which  to  place  men  in  connec- 
tion with  the  gods,  and  to  reproduce,  in  a  purified  condition, 
the  beliefs  and  practices  of  the  old  polytheism. 

There  were  three  chief  centres  of  this  sect,  —  Alexandria, 
Athens,  and  Rome.  Its  great  exemplars  and  representative 
men  are  Plotinus  and  Proclus.  These  authors  drew  from 
the  old  Eastern  sources  ;  the  system  of  emanation  forms  the 
key  to  their  whole  philosophy ;  and  in  their  doctrines  may 
be  found  the  germs  of  the  later  and  modern  pantheistic  the- 
ories. Giordano  Bruno,  Spinoza,  the  German  transcenden- 
talists,  and  the  French  eclectics,  have  but  reproduced  their 
ideas.  Together  with  their  blended  system  of  syncretistic 
speculations  there  came  a  revival  of  polytheism,  of  the  prac- 
tice of  magic,  and  of  fancied  communication  with  genii,  gods, 
and  departed  spirits,  just  as,  in  the  nineteenth  century,  while 
rationalistic  principles  have  been  gaining  ground  in  the  com- 
munity, the  practices  and  arts  of  the  table-tippers,  the  rap- 
pers, the  spiritualists,  and  the  dealers  with  the  dead,  have 
become  familiar  to  the  public.  It  is  impossible  to  miss  the 
meaning  of  these  correspondences. 

Since  the  Neo-Platonistic  school  forms  the  connecting  link 
between  the  ancient  and  the  modern  pantheists,  it  seems  best 
to  present  the  views  of  that  school,  m  order  that  the  gene- 
alogy may  be  clearly  seen.  Maret  (to  whose  admirable  and 
exhaustive  work  I  am  indebted  for  this  historic  sketch)  thus 
sums  up  the  philosophy  of  Proclus  :  —  "  There  is  only  one 
substance  in  the  universe,  always  identical  with  itself;  we 
discover  this  essence  in  ourselves  by  the  contemplation  of 
the  Ego.  This  substance  is  the  Absolute' Unity  ;  it  encloses 
in  itself  the  principles  of  multiplicity  and  of  diversity.  The 
primitive  unity,  like  a  luminous  mass,  radiates  from  its  eter- 
nal centre,  and  produces  the  infinite  series  of  beings  which 
are  one  and  manifold  at  once.  These  derived  unities  are 
incessantly  brought  back  to  their  centre  by  the  same  force 
which  fiung  them  forth  like  sparks  from  the  fire  of  eternal 


NOTES.  108 

life.  Thus  the  world  is  perfect.  Matter  is  an  eternal  em- 
anation from  God.  Evil  is  a  mere  negation ;  it  is  but  the 
inequality  of  souls." 

Thus  far  of  the  Alexandrian  school. 

The  triumph  of  Christianity  brought  with  it  a  second  de- 
cay and  disappearance  of  Pantheism.  It  is  not  until  the 
time  of  Charlemagne  that  we  trace  it  again.  In  the  ninth 
century  Scotus  Erigena  revived  it ;  and  other  writers  of  less 
note  exhibit  in  their  works  the  predictions  of  its  future  ap- 
pearance. In  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries,  however, 
the  study  of  this  philosophy  was  fully  renewed,  and  schools 
were  formed,  the  pedigree  of  which  may  be  traced  at  once 
to  the  Neo-Platonists. 

The  appearance  of  Giordano  Bruno  and  Spinoza  upon  the 
scene  marks  the  commencement  of  the  pantheistic  revival. 
It  is  unnecessary  to  enter  upon  a  full  account  of  their  tenets, 
which  are  already  too  well  known.  To  reconcile  those  tenets 
with  the  Catholic  faith  would  be  impossible ;  their  relation 
with  the  anterior  philosophies  is  close  and  full ;  in  principles 
and  results  they  are  the  same. 

Thus,  descending  the  chronological  scale,  we  arrive  at  the 
recent  epoch  when  Germany  became  the  theatre  of  the  full 
development  of  the  traditional  heresy.  Kant  was  the  father 
of  the  modern  intellectual  movement  in  that  country.  Fichte, 
Schelling,  and  Hegel  followed  in  his  steps,  completing  his 
work.  In  Hegel  Pantheism  is  once  more  presented,  pure 
and  simple,  to  the  world.  The  line,  from  the  Brahmins  of 
India  to  these  rationalistic  philosophers,  is  visible,  link  after 
link.  The  metaphysical  systems  of  Germany  are  but  the 
old  Pantheism  clad  in  new  forms.  No  essential  progress  has 
been  made.  At  bottom  we  find  the  same  tenet  of  the  unity 
and  identity  of  substance,  the  principle  which  was  held  by 
the  Pythagoreans  and  Neo-Platonists,  revived  by  Erigena, 
repeated  by  Giordano  Bruno,  and  made  the  central  point  in 
the  system  of  Spinoza. 

As  for  ourselves,  we  are  concerned,  not  so  much  with  the 


104  NOTES. 

system  considered  in  its  scientific  form,  as  with  its  applica- 
tions. These  are  numerous ;  as,  for  instance,  to  morals,  his- 
tory, social  order,  art,  religion.  It  is  in  these  applications 
that  we  have  to  meet  and  deal  with  it ;  whether  it  present 
itself  in  the  shape  of  the  historic  theory  of  Buckle,  who 
strives  to  trace  all  events  to  physical  causes,  discarding  the 
idea  of  a  superintending  providence ;  or  in  the  form  of  the 
materialistic  atheism  of  Spencer  in  his  scheme  of  Universal 
Progress  ;  or  in  the  socialistic  experiments  of  Fourier  and 
his  disciples  ;  or  in  the  rational  religionism  of  those  who  dis- 
pense with  creeds  and  sacraments  and  all  the  frame w^ork  of 
a  visible  and  historic  Catholicism,  pretending  to  serve  God 
in  individual  seclusion  Avithout  the  mediation  of  rite  or  form 
or  consecrated  priesthood  ;  or  in  the  dreamy  and  unreal 
poetry  and  literature  of  the  day ;  or  in  the  feigned  confer- 
ences, through  mediums,  with  the  spirits  of  another  realm ; 
or  in  the  mad  attempts  at  advance  and  progress  towards  the 
idolization  of  humanity.  It  seems  impossible  for  any  candid 
man  to  read  the  history  of  human  thought  without  perceiv- 
ing that  one  and  the  same  disease  runs  through  it,  and  that 
the  course  is  ever  in  the  same  direction  when  the  restraints 
provided  by  Almighty  God  are  thrown  away.  There  is  and 
can  be  no  new  gospel ;  it  would  seem  that  there  can  be  no 
new  heresy.  These,  which  now  assail  the  truth,  have  risen 
up  against  it  heretofore,  and  have  been  as  often  prostrated. 
In  like  manner  the  reaction  will  presently  come,  and  they 
shall  be  cast  away  as  abominable,  and  left  to  smoulder  again 
in  the  ashes  of  their  burninir. 


NOTE   C. 

I  USE  the  word  "  licentious  "  in  the  sense  of  "  unrestrained 
by  law."  It  is  strange  that  they  who  reprove  lewdness  in 
the  flesh  and  in  the  carnal  passions,  seem  to  feel  no  need  of 
restraining   the  mind  from  indulgence  in  speculation;   for 


NOTES.  105 

profligacy  is  one  and  the  same  thing,  to  the  eye  of  God, 
whether  it  be  that  of  the  body  amid  harlots,  or  that  of  the 
intellect  amid  profane  thinkers. 

To  the  statement  in  the  text  that  the  mind  gravitates  nat- 
urally towards  the  pantheistic  scheme,  it  may  be  objected 
that  this  is  to  represent  the  reason  as  tending,  in  its  ordinary 
exercise,  toward  infidel  solutions.  But  this  objection  is 
groundless.  The  reason,  wrongly  acting,  must  depart  from 
the  truth ;  but  the  reason,  under  the  conditions  necessary  to 
its  proper  exercise,  cannot  go  astray.  For  the  reason  is  but 
an  eye ;  and  without  revelation  it  is  where  the  bodily  eye  is 
without  light.  It  would  be  as  great  a  misconception  of  our 
thought  to  say  that  the  intellect,  acting  naturally,  must  in- 
chne  to  error,  as  to  imagine  us  asserting  that  the  natural  use 
of  the  eye  tends  to  blindness.  The  use  of  the  eye  under 
false  conditions,  as  with  insufficient  light,  or  on  very  fine 
work,  or  in  any  way  in  which  it  was  not  intended  to  be 
used,  w^ould  indeed  tend  toward  the  destruction  of  that 
organ.  It  is  so  with  the  reason,  which,  in  divine  and  super- 
natural things,  was  not  made  to  be  used  except  under  the 
illumination  of  the  light  of  God.  When  men  speculate  by 
themselves,  independently  of  that  light,  as  shown  to  them  in 
historic  and  outward  revelation,  they  are  misusmg  the  god- 
like faculty,  and  do  but  weaken  and  ultimately  destroy  it. 


NOTE  D. 

The  French  school  of  Philosophy  traces  its  origin  to  Des- 
cartes ;  the  principles  advanced  by  him  were  perfected  by 
Malebranche,  and  it  would  not  have  been  difficult,  at  that 
stage,  to  have  harmonized  the  system  with  theology  and  re- 
ligion. 

But  the  sensual  school  of  Locke  took  its  rise  in  England. 
Its   principles,  adapted   by  Gassendi   and    Condillac,  were 


106  NOTES. 

thrown  into  the  philosophical  schools  of  France,  which 
rapidly  sunk  towards  materialism  and  naturalism. 

Then  came  the  Revolution,  which  upturned  society,  and 
shook  the  nation  to  its  centre,  drenching  it  in  its  own  blood. 

After  that  social  convulsion  the  French  philosophy  re- 
vived, with  a  powerful  reaction  from  the  materialism  of  its 
previous  stage,  —  a  reaction  which  was  due  to  the  rise  and 
influence  of  the  German  schools,  idealistic  and  spiritual  in 
their  tendencies.  The  result  was  seen  in  the  establishment 
of  the  modern  eclectic  school,  of  which  Cousin  was  the 
founder. 

The  eclectic  school  denies  the  charge  of  Pantheism  :  it  is, 
however,  in  its  principles  and  results  essentially  pantheistic. 
A  comparison  of  the  philosophy  of  Hegel  (about  the  char- 
acter of  which  there  is  no  doubt)  and  that  of  the  eclectics, 
will  show  practical  results  of  the  same  character.  The  his- 
toric systems,  the  moral  systems,  the  psychological  systems 
of  France  have  grown  up  together  with  the  eclectic  philoso- 
phy, and  as  a  result  of  the  movement  and  impulse  which  it 
gave  to  human  thought.  The  tendencies  of  those  systems 
are  all  in  the  same  direction ;  the  breach  between  philosophy 
and  religion  is  widening  continually  ;  and  the  minds  of  the 
educated  men  of  France  at  this  hour  would  seem  to  be  in 
almost  hopeless  alienation  from  the  faith.  "  The  longer  one 
lives  in  this  country,"  says  a  writer  now  resident  in  Paris, 
"  the  more  deeply  does  one  become  convinced  of  the  hopeless 
divorce  between  intellect  and  faith.  The  lay  mind  is  totally 
alienated  from  the  Church  and  from  revealed  religion.  There 
is  more  external  respect  for  the  former,  perhaps,  than  for  the 
latter,  because  '/es  convenances^  exercise  a  very  arbitrary 
power  in  France,  and  it  is  considered  correct  for  women  and 
children  to  be  communicants.  Educated  men  scarcely  ever 
are  so  ;  even  those  who  profess  a  kind  of  lax  reverence  for  the 
Church  and  for  religion  tell  you  almost  invariably  that  they 
do  not  ^  pratiquer.' ''  This  is  the  recognized  phrase,  which 
seems  to  be  regarded  as  a  matter  of  course,  an  almost  satis- 


NOTES.  IQTjf 

factory  equivalent  for  the  service  of  God.  When  Madame 
George  Sand  paints  a  young  man,  a  Parisian,  son  of  a  phi- 
losopher, who  is  a  deist  like  his  father,  and"  at  the  same  time 
pure  and  noble  in  his  life  and  feelings,  she  gives  us,  I  fear, 
an  ideal  picture,  little  in  accordance  with  the  facts ;  and,  in- 
deed, elsewhere  in  the  same  book  she  shows  young  French- 
men as  generally  scoffing  against  humanity  and  moral  prin- 
ciple. But  she  does  not  exaggerate  the  strength  of  the 
almost  universal  prejudice  of  the  educated  class  against  the 
Christian  faith.  I  told  you  once  before  that  one  of  the  most 
Christian-hearted  Frenchmen  known  to  me,  a  literary  man 
of  note,  told  me  not  long  ago  that  it  was  next  to  impossible 
for  an  educated  Frenchman  to  be  a  Christian  ;  that  the  ut- 
most he  could  do  was  to  '  aspire.' " 


NOTE  E. 

This  idea  of  a  progressive,  advancing,  and  improving  God, 
blasphemously  as  it  sounds  to  us,  is  among  the  most  familiar 
of  the  pantheistic  notions.  It  is  expressed  in  the  well-known 
formula  of  the  Germans,  "  Gott  ist  in  werden^'  Deus  est  in- 
Jieri.  To  show  that  the  thought  is  not  a  strange  one  here 
at  home,  I  make  the  following  extracts  from  an  article  in  a 
radical  journal  published  in  this  city  ;  the  communication  is 
a  reply  to  the  questions,  "  What,  Where,  and  How  is  God  ?  " 
The  writer  says :  "  God  is  the  intelligent,  vivifying  prin- 
ciple, pervading  and  developing  all  matter Eternal 

progress  is  one  of  the  attributes  of  God,  and  is  the  coexist- 
ent fundamental  law  of  the  universe.  All  nature  demon- 
strates this  profound  and  all-pervading  principle.  God  Him- 
self cannot  be  exceptional  to  the  universal  law  of  which 
Himself  is  the  en  active  and  vitalizing  principle.  Therefore 
God  Himself  progresses.  God  possesses  sensation,"  &c.,  &c. 
This  writer  has  but  copied  the  ideas  of  the  German  pan- 
theists. 


108  NOTES. 


NOTE   F. 


The  Catholic  dogma  of  the  creation  (using  that  word  in 
its  proper  sense  of  bringing  into  being  what  was  not  in  any 
way  before)  is,  and  must  ever  be,  the  test  of  all  heresies 
touching  the  origm  of  the  world.  The  pliilosophers  repel 
the  charge  of  Pantheism  ;  they  claim  to  believe  in  a  God. 
But  they  will  not  admit  that  God  is  a  creator.  If,  however, 
the  dogma  of  the  creation  be  denied,  there  remains  no  conceiv- 
able choice  but  between  Dualism  and  Pantheism.  Either 
God  created  the  world,  or  He  did  not.  If  He  did  not  create 
it,  it  is  eternal.  If  eternal,  it  is  either  substantially  distinct 
from  Him,  or  substantially  identical  with  Him.  To  take 
the  former  alternative  is  to  admit  two  eternal  substances; 
to  take  the  latter  is  to  hold  the  unity  and  identity  of  sub- 
stance. There  is  no  logical,  no  possible  position  for  him 
who  denies  the  Catholic  dogma  of  the  creation,  save  in  Dual- 
ism, Pantheism,  or  skepticism. 


NOTE  G. 

To  the  summary  presented  in  the  text  it  may  be  added 
that  the  system,  as  now  operative,  divides  itself  into  two 
branches,  materialistic  Pantheism,  and  idealistic  Pantheism. 
The  former  is  a  gross  sensualism  and  naturalism,  which  sees 
in  the  universe  nothing  but  matter  and  its  modifications  and 
transformations.  The  latter  is  a  more  elevated  and  more 
serious  s[)eculation.  In  the  former,  God  is  brought  down 
to  and  absorbed  in  the  world ;  in  the  latter,  the  world  is  lifted 
up  and  translated  into  God.  But  the  grand  and  distinctive 
features  in  each  are  the  same,  —  the  denial  of  the  distinction 
between  the  finite  and  the  infinite,  and  the  assertion  of  the 
unity  and  identity  of  substance. 


NOTES,  109 

NOTE   H. 

During  the  season  of  Lent,  in  1863,  when  I  was  deliver- 
ing these  lectures,  I  received  from  time  to  time,  through  the 
mail,  communications  evidently  written  in  great  bitterness 
of  spirit,  denouncing  my  work  in  unmeasured  terms,  and 
especially  reviling  the  dogma  of  the  Holy  Trinity.  When 
the  lectures  Avere  announced  for  repetition  last  winter, 
the  attacks  to  which  I  have  referred  were  renewed,  and  in 
divers  communications,  for  the  most  part  anonymous  or  bear- 
ing false  signatures,  I  was  assailed  as  an  enemy  of  the  truth, 
and  the  doctrine  of  the  Blessed  Trinity  was  aspersed,  with 
a  malignity  which  could  hardly  have  been  surpassed,  while 
spiritual  powers  were  appealed  to  and  invoked  as  at  hand  to 
silence  my  utterances.  I  record  these  facts  to  show  to  what 
extent  the  simple  enunciation  of  the  truth  may  arouse  the 
fury  of  the  enemy ;  and  also  that  I  may  notice  a  circum- 
stance which  profoundly  impressed  me  at  the  time,  which 
has  been  often  referred  to  since  its  occurrence,  and  which,  in 
view  of  the  foregoing  particulars,  (known  only  to  myself  at 
the  moment,)  afforded,  as  I  devoutly  felt,  a  visible  sign  of 
the  neighborhood  and  approval  of  the  Almighty.  At  ihQ 
instant  of  my  uttering  the  words,  "  O  Father,  Sou,  and  Holy 
Ghost,"  the  whole  congregation,  as  though  moved  by  a  more 
than  human  power,  slowly  arose,  and  so  remained,  with 
heads  bowed  in  adoration,  during  the  utterance  of  that  which 
followed.  Never  did  I  feel  God  nearer  than  at  that  mo- 
ment ;  and  never  did  I  feel  more  thrillingly  the  certainty  of 
the  ultimate  triumph  of  the  eternal  truths  of  the  Catholic 
Creed.  It  was  as  if  a  voice  from  heaven  were  crying  aloud, 
"  Unto  me  every  knee  shall  bow,  every  tongue  shall  swear, 
saith  the  Lord." 

THE    END. 


'inceton  Theological  Semin.iry-Speer  Lil 


1    1012  01007  0466 


